Halkegenia Online Gaiden Story: Zero Hour Original Edition
by CowboyCapo
Summary: A Gaiden story of Triggerhappy's excellent Halkegenia Online The survivors of Laughing Coffin would need to find another outlet for their murderous tendencies. A teenaged girl would not find resolution through a game, would be left to her own devices. As Laughing Coffin and Asada Shino meet, evil men plot to force their way to that other world, to become gods in their own right.
1. 1-1: Obsession

Some of you that read Halkegenia Online on Sufficient Velocity might have seen this first fanfiction of mine over there; I've been asked by some of the people there (including the original work's author, the master wordsmith Triggerhappy) to archive it here as well. I hope you enjoy the story.

* * *

Obsession

* * *

The man smiled wickedly as he hit the disconnect button on his phone, finishing the layout of yet another contract, another piece of the puzzle, for his new plan.

He remembered his shock on the day that sixty thousand and change people, one particularly near and dear to him, disappeared from the world while playing that game. He silently cursed himself that day for his arrogance, for his lack of being there when it happened, but there was nothing he could do about it.

At least, that was, until he received a call from one of the hospitals that had one of the prototype Medicubes set up for terminally ill patients; the rooms where those patients had been interred all had cameras, to ensure that anything that might go wrong would at least have a record of what went on, to ensure that the insurance companies that dealt with liability issues could cover their own asses. The man sighed, so many non-disclosure forms to sign, so many palms to be greased, but he had evidence of what happened, as the green light swallowed up those unfortunates being recorded.

A twisted grin came to his lips as he thought back to how long it had taken to break those agreements, less than two minutes. Posting the videos online enabled him to pick the brains of those more skilled in other scientific areas, particle and quantum physics most importantly. The smile turned upside down as he recalled how much of the information he had received back was utter garbage, the results of conspiracy theorists or educated morons thinking too hard.

Fortunately, that man had prepared. When Argus was bought out after the Alfheim debacle, he had arranged for a copy of the Seed to become available to himself. He had such great plans for his copy of the Seed, but other older and wiser men thought it better to create a new game with their copy, stopping his plans dead in their tracks. No matter, the fall of RECT's gaming division proved to himself the worth of their plans.

Now, though, he had arranged for a new virtual world to come about. Most of those who would be present there would not be doing so of their own free will. Certain prisoners from a number of countries in the world proved themselves far too apt at escaping time and time again (the video from Lupin the Fourth leaving a Saudi Arabian prison via creative use of whipped cream still made him laugh).

Other groups wanted the ability to train their soldiers and goons without spending the money or years of training that it would require to turn their men into the elites they thought they needed. He had even had inquiries from Tono-gumi on behalf of his Yakuza, a contract he had thought about turning down out of hand. No one needed to have the surviving members of Laughing Coffin trained to become more effective killers for use on the outside world, though the money would enable him to place his server in a country outside of normal extradition laws.

As that man thought over the plans for the virtual prison/military simulator that he intended to build, he sighed. It was so easy, coming back from what could have been disaster had that child finished his assault. Now, if his main goal failed, he would at worst be so rich as to join the world's elite, taking all the money the prisons, military, and criminal syndicates would gleefully lay at his feet.

If his plan worked, though, he would use his masterpiece, Grave of Guns Online, to draw himself to where the one he cared about (in his own sick way) was.

Sugou Nobuyuki allowed himself to recline indolently in his leather chair. "Soon, Asuna, my Titania."


	2. 1-2: Fresh Prince of Hell

Fresh Prince of Hell

* * *

In one of the few cathedrals still standing from the Tokugawa period, a middle-aged American woman wept silently as she lit a candle for yet another of the disappeared children from the ALO Disaster.

When SAO had been cleared, everyone woke up, all save three hundred poor souls trapped before they could wake up, kept captive at the hands of another, unknown, madman. Even so, she wondered why the police kept coming to talk to her; she knew little about what her son had done in the previous VR terrorism in SAO. Her precious child had never woken up, and now he was gone. "Oh, my young prince... Wherever you are, go with God."

Meanwhile, an entire world apart, a young man drew back his weapon, a massive butcher's cleaver, and ended the existence of yet another Albionese soldier who had as his only misfortune the fact that he had spotted the Fae. The Fae were following the prince of this kingdom, trying to make their escape back to Newcastle. The irony of it all, that he would be hunted here not primarily for his actions, but instead due to a single pair of ears attached to his head, was not lost upon him.

Asuna, the commander of the new Knights of the Blood (how that guild angered him so), gave the word to run for it. Though the man hated to admit it, the Flash seemed born to lead. She had managed to bring their worried little band, minus the twenty caught up in the Dragon Knights' trap, all the way through to Newcastle. Just as well that she had not pieced together his real identity yet.

Those cold eyes traced further back, to the soon-to-be-burning fortress Wallsend. The man's handsome countenance, that of his Iarel body, scowled as he rapidly calculated the distance between himself and the fortress. His group had cleared out earlier than the others, though he thought he saw the beginnings of reinforcements coming. In all truth, he didn't really care about the other groups much, he had just simply come to hate Reconquista as much as he hated Asians.

That brought him back to their first days in this new world, trying to figure out what was going on. Asuna had been instrumental in getting Kimura to talk, and thus granted the handsome young man a new target for his wrath: Sugou Nobuyuki, AKA Oberon. Dodging out of the way of a line of musketeers, he let a throwing knife fly that claimed an unaware mage before continuing on his way.

There was no doubt for it. No matter what the cost would be, the young man would find his way back out of this world so that he might achieve his new goal in life. A pair of soldiers walked right in front of him, not seeing him for the second it took for his cleaver to, well, cleave their heads off. He would escape, and in that escape, begin his true mission.

Aincrad had prepared him for his task quite well, the social engineering he had arranged gave him insight into the human mind just as the constant battles to survive granted him the skills to do the deed. Even so, as he lashed out with Mate Chopper, Vassago Casals could only laugh as the sad sack of humanity most recently in his way found out the hard way that there was no blocking the demonic butchering tool.

"Edgar! We're clear, let's get the hell out of here before any more show up!" his human mage leader said. That brought a sardonic smirk to the lips of [PoH], who took that new alias from the horror author his initials sounded most alike, Poe.

The Prince of Hell nodded, 'donating' a dagger to one last victim of that evening's rampage before following his nominal leader.


	3. 1-3: Laughter's Over Part 1

Laughter's Over, Part 1

* * *

The thirteen robed, masked ones met inside an abandoned building, soon to be torn down in order that no cover might be given to illicit activities within, no potential threat to the moral or physical fiber of their country, and smiled, plotting their persistent revenge against Japan's order, against those who would stop them from doing as they pleased.

"All right. Prophet, you've arranged the transportation for our victims, right?" said one of the men, glaring over the one female among the membership of their society of 'elite revolutionaries', in truth twisted serial killers one and all.

The woman glared daggers at the source of the query. "But of course. Three per team; one driver, two kidnappers. Each time we stop to take a pair of targets, the kidnappers jump out, overpower the targets, and then drag them back into the coach area. If it looks like there might be witnesses, skip the target and go to one of the alternates. Inside the wagon, restrain the victims, search them for anything they might use or we might use. Once each wagon is full, two groups of two apiece, return here. Go out for the second batch of four, return here, and begin the evening's festivities. Wraith, speaking of which, did you arrange your trap?"

A slender man with a mask showing no features whatsoever chuckled evilly. "Yes, yes. That partitioned room is ready to go when we are. The mass oil boiler has been tested; the hot oil pumps are in fine order, and the swinging hooks and balance beam've been soaked with the gore from the last group of victims. Render?"

The stockiest of their number stepped hard onto a wooden crate, making it creak. "The stairwell of death has been set. All I need to do is trigger it, and it'll collapse inward upon command. Anything still in the stairwell will end up having the consistency of steak tartare." Eyes sliding to the side, he mentioned neutrally, "Johnny?"

"The winter wonderland is all set up. That room's already prepared, the nails, spikes, and ice are already in place, as is the flesh hooks for when one of our dear guests inevitably slips up." Johnny simply eyed the next one in line as he twirled a .45 caliber pistol in one hand.

'Killer' tilted his head to one side, showing the twisted infirmary that he had arranged. Hallucinogen mists, rusty bone saws, chains, needles and cleavers, if it could be used as an instrument of bladed agony, he did his level best to find room for it. When he spoke, the reason for his desire not to became clear, as the muscular man sounded permanently as if he had swallowed helium. "Fluffy, Powder, is everything ready on your end?"

As the twins gave him sardonic grins, they commented in unison, "Oh yes. We've arranged our little act to have quite the audience, especially for our paying guests. They payed good coin to watch terror, we intend to show them precisely what they paid for." The two then nodded to the shortest of their membership, inclining towards his area of responsibility.

As Flay pulled a lever, a stud-covered rolling ball large enough to reliably turn most conveyances into scrap rolled down its designed path, adding new grooves to the pathway where it had gone through. "The Death Roller is good to go, and the spiked pits on the way are cleared for their newest occupants. Each time the ball rolls, though, we will need to reset it. Hack En Slash, you two've already prepped for that, anything we need to know about?"

The more rotund of the two remained silent, while the other let off a speech several minutes long detailing all the varied tools in place to ensure their client would get the most bang for his buck. He closed with, "The sick fucks'll even get to watch the poor bastards in the pits."

Two others, wearing black masks with the common comedy and tragedy appearance stepped forward then. "Let's not forget the pink gorilla in the room. If your brother kills more of those half-wits, then he's in, right, [Xaxa]?"

"Oh, hell yes. We need new blood, gentlemen. With [PoH] and the five of us fucking around in [ALO] vanished, and [Ghoul] and [Catherine] committed to asylums of the criminally insane for the rest of their lives, we need to start thinking ahead, planning for both our place in the future of Japan, and of the legacy of [Laughing Coffin's] Death Game to take place. Oh, and let's not forget Boss Tono's take in this."

As he raised a goblet up, Xaxa's fellows followed suit. "To the [Death Game!]" they shouted, drinking the crimson liquid like it were water, before shattering the clay vessels.


	4. 1-4: Laughter's Over Part 2

Laughter's Over, Part 2

* * *

"You fake killer, now taste the truth of real power!" heard the defeated man on the ground, holding his stomach where a stray round from earlier had struck, leaving a trail of blood for the short distance the unfortunate man had been able to crawl, trying to get away from that [one], the one who seemed so tall from his view from the floor.

The [gun] came out, the same one that the wounded man had seen drawn on that one girl who survived the horrors that had been inflicted on her by the remnants of Laughing Coffin in the Real World. As he looked upon his likely executioner, he could not help but notice that his slayer's eyes seemed to look red, probably a trick of the lighting in the converted warehouse the two of them were in. As the glaring eyes peered down at him, he shivered in mortal fear as the barrel climbed up, the 7.62mm barrel of the Type 54 pistol coming into view like the opening maw of Hell itself.

As he wet himself, the looming figure of doom spoke once more, in a voice steeled in the finality of the grave: "This is real strength, real power! Foolish man, engrave the fear of this name in your heart!" The hammer came back, and the victim on the ground curled into a ball, his last hope gone.

"This gun and I are one; this name, [Death Gun]!" said the cloaked killer, before letting a 7.62mm lead valentine fly to kiss the skull of the chosen target. Sighing at a job now complete, the slayer turned, holstering the Black Star Shooter.

* * *

(26 hours earlier)

Across the island of Kyushu, four black vans drove around for a period of about four hours. When the appropriate moment struck, each van struck, picking out four pairs each of students walking home together. Witnesses described the assailants as men in black cloaks and garish white masks, like a bad Kei rock band. Each attacker pressed a rag into the faces of each of the students, and then dragged off their unconscious forms, leaving behind a four of spades.

* * *

(16 hours earlier)

Asada Shino woke up in a padded room, blindfolded, gagged, and with her hands tied loosely. As her senses began to return to her, she began to hear the muffled groans of others waking up as well. Trying to get her bearings, she lurched around, accidentally kneeing someone else as she tripped over him. "Mmmmph..." was all she could hear out of the presumably male body beneath her. Shaking her head to try to get the buzzing feeling out of her mind, she heard a tenor tone that sounded like it came from a heavy smoker droning out of a speaker.

"Good evening, kids. Do you know where you are today? No? Good! Please, feel free to wake up, and get acquainted with each other. After all, you're going to be playing a game together!"

Shino closed her eyes, moaning slightly as she did so, the fear of losing control of her life rising to the forefront, threatening to overwhelm her. The face of the post office robber popped up into her view, gibbering incoherently in her mind, blood flowing from the hole she put in his head with his own gun.

"OK kids, you're in a deathtrap-ridden building, with plenty of ways for you to kill yourselves or others through your own stupidity. The only way you are going to survive is if you make it to the exit. But oh, wait, there's more! Call now, and you'll get a fresh set of wok pans for free!"

The sounds of a struggle erupted over the speakers, with something roughly sounding like, "Black, you moron, cut that shit out" being heard. After a few minutes, the struggle seemed to cease, and a new voice could be heard. "OK kids, here's the rules: If you want to survive, then you need to leave the room you're in and get down the stairs as quickly as possible. Oh yeah, and if someone isn't dead by the time all but two of you are out the door to the next floor, then the last two sorry sacks do not leave the stairs alive. Survivors, get ready, GO!"

* * *

(15 to 1 hours earlier)

After so much horror, Shino and Kyoji finally found the exit sign that would lead the way to the end of the man-made hell of that day.

The first trap had involved an elaborate spiked staircase designed to collapse inward after a command was given. If it weren't for Kyoji pulling her up, Shino would have been skewered and squashed by the stairs when they fell. Even with that, one of the other students had tripped her to slow her down, only for Shino to attempt and make a jump between the levels of stairs. Her would-be saboteur ended up stopping her jump, taking the impact and flailing down the stairs, where a horrific-sounding -CRACK!- reverberated throughout the stairwell as the thug's neck twisted in an unnatural angle.

Shino would kill two others during their escape; their deaths were no accident. The first was a girl driven mad by hallucinogens in the food in a fridge; Shino tried to stop her from killing a handsome teen, only to get nicked just below the left eye. Seeing red, when Shino finally was pulled off of her she found she had strangled her unintended foe to death.

The other was the teen she had saved; he had begun showing his love for one of the girls with a heated butcher's cleaver. Walking in on him preparing to behead the younger girl, Shino saw the crimson glow once more. When she came to, she found herself holding a bloody pair of scissors. A shallow cut on her ribs had not kept Shino from stabbing the handsome boy repeatedly, only Kyoji hugging her had calmed her down and brought her back to herself.

After a quick patching-up, the best that Kyoji could do for her, Shino padded the side she got cut on, then belted the padding into place using Ace bandages and the teen's belt (he didn't need it any more.) Kyoji went through the medicines, before pulling a syringe out. "This should kill the pain while we get out of here, Shino..." he said as he inspected the wound with careful hands.

Palming another syringe of procaine for the pain, Shino followed Kyoji out a few feet behind into a new room, with odd grooves on the wall. Turning just in time to see a concrete sphere large enough to crush the two of them into paste, she pushed Kyoji further, screaming, "RUN!" She took her own advice, sprinting after Kyoji until he did the oddest thing, jumped. Shino did not understand until the ground fell away underneath her.

Shino had but a moment to look about her before the trap door closed. She saw spikes everywhere in the pit, and felt down, expecting the worst. Instead, she had landed on the corpse of a fellow student who had saved Shino's life by losing his own. The trap door closed up above her, and she began screaming just as the darkness closed in around her.

It was over an hour later of crying, shouting, and finally, silence before the trap door opened back up, Kyoji offering a hand to help her get out. She asked about the other students, but Kyoji simply shook his head.

As the two of them approached the next room, Shino sighed, she had just spotted an exit sign. If it wasn't yet another trap, the two of them were almost free. Opening the door and expecting anything, Shino still seemed surprised to find so many bodies spread around what seemed to be an arena. Stepping further in, she turned about, looking for Kyoji, who simply smiled at her, just as he plunged a short-needled syringe into the same side she'd had padded.

"Sorry, Shino, but you are the final sacrifice I needed." said the young man, his eyes narrowing and pupils dilating. "I really wish it could be another way, but in order for me to join Laughing Coffin with my brother, I needed to kill more people than anyone else here, and you make three." Shino looked at Kyoji in shock, the pain of being betrayed obvious on her face. "Oh, don't be mad, Shino. If you hadn't killed those two fools, right now I would be asking you for your first kiss instead." Insane laughter escaped the boy's mouth, just before he pressed the button that would inject Shino with a dose that would give her a heart attack, that would leave her corpse pristine.


	5. 1-5: Laughter's Over Part 3

Laughter's Over, Part 3

* * *

(40 Minutes Earlier)  
"Sorry, Shino, but you are the final sacrifice I needed." said the young man, his eyes narrowing and pupils dilating. "I really wish it could be another way, but in order for me to join Laughing Coffin with my brother, I needed to kill more people than anyone else here, and you make three." Shino looked at Kyoji in shock, the pain of being betrayed obvious on her face. "Oh, don't be mad, Shino. If you hadn't killed those two fools, right now I would be asking you for your first kiss instead." Insane laughter escaped the boy's mouth, just before he pressed the button that would inject Shino with a dose that would give her a heart attack, that would leave her corpse pristine.

His mad smile faded after a few seconds, asking, "Why aren't you dying, Shino?"

That snapped her terror, replacing it with a cold rage as she took the syringe she had palmed, slid her fingers into the plunger, and drew air into the hypo. Kyoji looked into her eyes, shocked at the change in her, just before she jabbed the needle into his neck and squeezed.

Kyoji could only look up at her in shock and fear as she turned her back on him. "I liked you, Kyoji, I really did." said she, letting her heart's pain ease out for a brief moment, before saying, "You know, though, you are already dead." The boy could only look on for a brief moment longer, before the air bubble in the needle made its way into his brain. A few seconds of agonizing seizures later, and Shinkawa Kyoji was gone.

(30 minutes earlier)

* * *

Looking down at where Kyoji had injected the toxin, the intended victim spotted a needle where it had snapped off in the belt buckle holding her bandages up. "WHY?! Why can I not DIE?" screamed Shino, all her frustrations, all her pain and tears coming out at once, pulling the hypo from her side and throwing it to the ground. "Why must I sin on?" Her eyes remained tightly closed, trying not to see what she had just done, even though her mind unhelpfully replayed all four of the deaths she caused that day, combining with the gibbering in her mind from her very first victim running rampant to horrific effect.

The answer to her question opened the door a few seconds later, the kidnappers coming out to meet the winner of their death game.

"Hey, told you your brother didn't have the chops for this, Xaxa." said one of their number, a female wearing a featureless mask and black cloak. "Hell, he got taken out by a girl."

"Shut the fuck up, Prophet." said the one with the garish skull mask with the red eyes.

That had been followed by Black saying, "I wouldn't mind taking her out myself. She's not bad.", adding an appreciative whistle.

This drew a sputter from the last member of their little group, Wraith, before Shino _felt_ Xaxa come closer, her fingers picking up on the vibrations. Drawing a handgun, Xaxa approached her and pointed it at her. She knew that gun, it was one she knew only too well. "So, little girl. You have a choice. Die as you are now, or die to yourself and join the [Laughing Coffin]."

The fear, the shame rose up in her, looking upon the weapon she first became a killer with, one she learned about in order to try to force the fear of it out of her. Now, looking down the barrel of it once more, all she could do was close her eyes.

The one known as Asada Shino compared then to that one time, and thought about the difference she could feel between that robber and this murderer in front of her.

Her mind broke, the cruel reality of the world snapping her hope of overcoming her fears. She would become her nightmares instead.

The core of her soul became cold. Her heartbeat slowed down like a lie.

As her eyes opened, she said, "There are four reasons why you will not kill me. Reason the fourth, is that Asada Shino is already dead, killed during a robbery five years ago." Pausing, she drew in breath, knowing now that even though she spoke from a twisted, broken perspective, she was not wrong. "She died the instant she pulled the trigger on the robber using his own gun." She walked closer to Xaxa, and said, "This one did not know what she was, not until today, not until you set her free."

"Third: Your grip is too tight, and your breathing wrong. Even if you fired this close to me, you still would miss twenty percent of the time." She glared up into Xaxa's red lens-covered eyes, no emotion whatsoever on her face. Taking a meditative breath, she continued, "Second, the problem with the Type 54 pistol is that as a knockoff of the Tokarev, it has the same issue with putting the magazine in backwards, like you did. Seriously, look at it." She blew out a puff of air, hoping the lie would take, before adding, "If you had fired that at me, you would have had a one in eight chance of shooting yourself, and a zero in eight chance of shooting me." That last bit drew the laughter of Wraith and one of the other kidnappers.

"What." Xaxa managed to blurt out, bringing the Black Star up in front of his eyes to look at the clip, so that he could see to fix it.

Shino slammed her palm into it, driving it into his nose and breaking it messily. He lost the gun as well, as the student ripped it out of his hands. She pulled the trigger, a round slamming in just below his sternum, blowing through his spinal column in the process.

"First: Ice. I am a machine made of cold ice."

The other members of [Laughing Coffin] no longer found it funny at all, and as they drew forth the weapons each had upon them, Shino swung the Black Star Shooter to the ones drawing a pistol, and without aiming fired. Maybe it was luck, maybe it was raw talent, but her second round succeeded in blowing out Johnny Black's skull. Following through, Prophet was the next to die, Wraith and Akira following before they could turn to flee, and the rout was on, the remaining members running for the safe room as one of their number was drilled in the head, to call in some favors.

It was a revelation to the girl as she walked onward. To heal a badly misshapen fracture required the bone to be broken so it could fit back into the right place. Perhaps the same was true for her mind. She followed deliberately, picking up Black's Colt 1911 before continuing on, death in each hand. As she approached the safe room, she heard banging on a vault door, as the slowest of the guild members tried to beg entrance to the barricaded room. He died a half second later, a .45 caliber round entering through his left ear.

Shino tried the door for a few seconds, before looking up at all the ventilation ducting. Thinking quickly, she peered about for a place she could enter, lips twisted in a cold smile as she grabbed a ladder and went to work.

Climbing through the ductwork, Shino left two gallon jugs of noxious cleaning liquids and an open can of gasoline right above the room, before backing out and making enough noise to wake the dead. Only after she left the pipe did she light a match and throw it in; she had taken her school's fire safety lessons and what she had seen online to heart.

A resounding -WHOOMPH!- erupted from the shaft as the vent piping burst into toxin-spewing flame, and the few survivors of Shino's improvised incendiaries fled the safe room. In order to escape, they had run right into Shino's field of fire. Not one survived the minute.

* * *

(Zero Hour)

Asada Shino returned to where she had left Xaxa bleeding and crippled from the waist down. Having dealt with all of his comrades, she returned to finish off the last of their number, and to eliminate the misfortune that was their continued existence. "I must thank you and your brother for showing me the way, and why I couldn't figure out how not to fear, Souichi. If you two had not taken me here and introduced me to your sick little hell, I would never have moved on from killing that robber." said she, a wistful smile on her face that soon twisted into a grimace of rage.

"You fake killer, now taste the truth of real power!" heard Xaxa, holding his stomach where the round from earlier had struck, leaving a trail of blood for the short distance the unfortunate man had been able to crawl, trying to get away from that girl, the one who seemed so tall from his view from the floor.

The gun came out, the same one that the condemned man had drawn on that one girl who survived the horrors that he had inflicted on her, tearing anything resembling remorse from her. As he looked upon his likely executioner, he could not help but notice that his slayer's eyes seemed to look red, probably a trick of the lighting in the converted warehouse the two of them were in. As the glaring eyes peered down at him, he shivered in mortal fear as the barrel climbed up, the 7.62mm barrel of the Type 54 pistol coming into view like the gaping open maw of Hell itself.

As he wet himself, the girl who might have been considered moe before seemed to become a looming figure. His doom spoke once more, in a voice steeled in the finality of the grave: "This is real strength, real power! Foolish man, engrave the fear of this name in your heart!" The hammer came back, and the victim on the ground curled into a ball, his last hope gone.

"This gun and I are one; this name, Death Gun!" said the cloaked killer, before letting a 7.62mm lead valentine fly to kiss the skull of the chosen target. Sighing at a job now begun, the slayer turned, holstering the Black Star Shooter. "Sin on, ye wicked, so that I might come bring retribution upon you." [Death Gun] then went to check on the girl in the infirmary before calling the police.

* * *

When the police finally found out where the vans had all gone, they arranged a cordon around an old, due-to-be-demolished warehouse.

Only one maimed student was found alive in that warehouse in Nagasaki when the police finally went in. Of the other students, twenty-eight were found dead, with another thirteen recent adult corpses also present, not counting other sets of unidentifiable remains. The police clamped down on the area rapidly, trying and failing to keep all the information of the horrors that occurred there from the public.

[Laughing Coffin] had managed to hide its killings as runaways and lovers' suicides through inventive messaging use of the cellphones of their victims; the evidence crew found thirty phones present, all from students gone missing over the previous day.

* * *

(28 days later)

One of the twisted men who had paid for the videos that [Laughing Coffin] had made of the Death Games they had set up looked at the girl in his passenger seat. Her age didn't matter to him much, the video of her torture and death would bring in more money for the Tono-gumi; it mattered not that she didn't seem scared now.

The cat ears were a nice touch too, no doubt this girl was a freak. No one would miss her much, just another piece of meat for his industry. "So, pet, what's your name? What do you do?" said he for distraction as he stopped in front of the warehouse he was using, getting the chloroform rag ready for her.

As he turned, he saw her frown turn upside down into a twisted grin, her brown eyes seeming to have little red slits, like those of a cat. That was not as worrying, though, as the tunnel of death he was looking down, the Black Star Shooter pointed right between his eyes. "My name is the same as this gun, [Death Gun]. As for what I do, I hunt those who sin on, so others do not have to."

The director of Tono's snuff film group slid back, trying to open the door, though knowing it was already too late. "Why? Why are you doing this? I've got money..."

"Pathetic." the one formerly known as Asada Shino spat out. The hammer cocked back, as automatic as the slow advance of Death himself. "I do this because no one else will..." A pull of a trigger, and the side window shattered from the bullet that ended the life of a sick, sick man. "And because it's fucking FUN!"


	6. 1-6: Coffin Smashing Part 1

Coffin Smashing Part 1

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 6 Hours)

* * *

It was just another long day on the job for Kikuoka Seijirou as he began to look around the warehouse that had so recently been home to the IRL Death Game held by [Laughing Coffin].

He knew that the only reason that he had been called in was due to his work in the Cyber Crimes Division, Special Branch. If thirteen of the dead bodies in the warehouse had not belonged to one of the organizations from SAO that he had been keeping an eye on, the first he would have heard about this disturbing incident would have been through the news. As it was, he had been ordered to keep things quiet, something he already knew was going to be impossible.

41 identifiable bodies and one survivor did tend to make discretion rather less possible, especially when two of them were the grandsons of Tono-gumi. Adding the organized crime angle to this was going to play utter hell with the investigation. Even now, he spotted the lab teams for the OC Taskforce collecting evidence, snapping photos and taping everything in this warehouse from hell studiously.

He walked past one group, noticing immediately how much warmer the air around him became as he entered one of the so-called Kill Rooms, the one he had been asked to look over, the room where Laughing Coffin's corpses had been found. Walking over the catwalk, the investigator was glad that there were handrails on it, otherwise he might have fallen into the now mostly-cooled oil in the industrial-sized fryer below.

His gaze slid left, to the thirteen reminders of the end of Laughing Coffin. Swinging on chains that ended on meat hooks, the remnants of the Red Guild looked on at nothing. Each had been ended with a single bullet through the head, that much was obvious, but their killers apparently wanted to leave a message.

Beyond the corpses was some graffiti in brownish-red, a circle with a skull in it. He shuddered as he looked upon that creepy, stylized red-eyed skull, finding himself oddly hoping that it was done in paint, instead of the other liquid of that color that immediately came to mind. Around that glyph was written in passable English, 'And Thus Laughing Coffin Shall Sin On No More.' The words on the top of the circle seemed to run into each other.

Taking his notebook, Kikuoka began transcribed everything written that he had seen in there. Several of the other investigators were doing likewise, including one who mis-transcribed 'Sin On' as 'Sinon'.

Shaking his head, the agent thought to his real plans, those that had been marred when Alfheim Online's players disappeared with so many of the players stuck in SAO. That had been a massive body blow to the project, most importantly with the loss of one Kirigaya Kazuto, alias Kirito. That teenager's natural skill would have allowed the project to evolve so much further forward.

After the disappearance, Kikuoka had begun looking for the SAO survivors with some kind of killing instinct, something he could use to push the project into combat readiness. To his dismay, he picked up on the Alfheim Liberation Front, the reason for so many of SAO's frontliners disappearing into thin air.

It was then he realized that extraordinary measures were required if he wanted to show any kind of advancement beyond what little he had already achieved. For that, he needed someone who could induce chaos onto an orderly society.

Before today, he had the potential for thirteen someones in the form of [Laughing Coffin]. Through carefully concealed connections, he had attempted to arrange for its members to end up on a server of his own devising, to use them to prepare for the [ALICIzation] Project through the crime lord related to one of their members. Oh, sure, by using Sugou Nobuyuki's attempt to turn them into useful members of society, he'd be doing the world a favor by removing thirteen deadly criminals without prison.

Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka's main concern, though, was that Japan would have the artificial intelligence capabilities to defend their country in the possible turbulent times ahead. Any purely charitable benefice from Sugou's (certainly highly illegal) behavior modifications meant nothing compared to that absolute requirement. Now that plan had been killed rather effectively. He needed to find a replacement for what would have become his pet psychopaths. On the plus side, if he could find out who [Sinon] was, maybe he would be able to kill two birds with one stone.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 7 Hours)

* * *

Tono Issei was having a very bad day.

Eight hours ago, he was informed by the head of the Tono Syndicate's Unpleasant Realities division that his feed from the murder game put on by one of the less-stable members of his family had cut out suddenly. The connection was still there, it simply wasn't transmitting anything. It was almost as if the one who had said that he could bring income to the Tono Group was trying to hide something from him, never a good thing in the best of times.

That news was worsened an hour later, when the connection died altogether. Now, not knowing if the Death Game was still running or not, he had his snuff group's director try to contact the members of [Laughing Coffin], first via encrypted email that bounced right back, and then to cellphones, which apparently were not turned on. It had been a worrying sign of things to come.

Attempts to force the phones on via hacking were tried six hours ago. This proved somewhat more useful, in that it at least provided the Yakuza family leader definitive proof that the Death Game had suddenly gone sour in a bad, bad way. All thirteen of the main phones (and the contact phone for Laughing Coffin's point man for the snuff film group) were in the middle of one of Sasebo's harbors; aside from one of the water-resistant phones, they failed had all failed, but the GPS was working.

At this point certain that the Death Game had been ended, Tono-domo sent two dozen of his men to the warehouse. It would take them four hours to get there through the uncharacteristically bad traffic; during that time the police arrived, and the first driver there had to make some rapid explanations which were not entirely believed, but were quick enough that the driver was able to fast-talk his way out of further trouble.

Meanwhile, Tono had called his son-in-law, Shinkawa Daisuke, trying to ascertain the whereabouts of his grandson, not his favorite Kyoji but the black sheep Souichi AKA [Xaxa of the Red Eyes]. When he found out that neither had returned home, he was nearly fit to be tied; he told Souichi that his brother was to be left alone, never to know about the Death Game. In a suddenly tired voice, Tono Issei asked that if Daisuke, a successful doctor, heard from either of his sons to call him immediately.

About three hours ago, he received a call from one Kikuoka Seijirou, an agent in Japan's anti cyber-crime division. By that point, he was almost certain that Souichi had involved himself far beyond the SAOvivor's ability to deal with, and had somehow managed to cause Kyoji's involvement as well. Swearing that if one hair on Kyoji's head was out of place, that Souichi had better have passed onto the Great Beyond himself already, Tono-dono began making preparations of his own, including a call to a favored retainer of his, useful in bleak times such as this.

Two hours ago, Tono heard back from his men at the warehouse. His pet assassin received a second call, informing him that if Souichi was still alive, five figures American would be his payment to change that state. He then called his mole in the Organized Crime Division, respectfully requesting (see also: demanding upon pain of being revealed) all the information he had on what was going on at the warehouse.

One hour ago, his worst fears were far exceeded. Kyoji lied dead in the morgue, the victim of an air embolism delivered through the carotid artery, apparently a casualty of the Death Game. As for Souichi, he (and all his fellow ne'er do wells in Laughing Coffin) had been ended in a fashion that suggested they had pissed off a Player in the Great Game, each of them dead to a bullet in the head. The fashion it was done in suggested a professional hit job done by one man; the fact that the bodies were then hung from meat hooks swinging over a flaming pit seemed to show the hit was a violent response, a declaration of war. The fact that there was a survivor, maimed horrifically but very much alive, seemed to add calculated insult to injury.

Now, Tono-domo called his assassin and soldiers back. The Tono Syndicate was in a state of war. The assassin was to hunt down the enigmatic slayer Sinon and return with his head. His soldiers and spymasters were to find out who had hired that man, so that they might avenge the spilled blood of their master's family.


	7. 1-7: Coffin Smashing Part 2

Coffin Smashing, Part 2

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 8 Hours)

* * *

Asada Shino was having a very bad day.

Then she went absolutely bat shit out of her mind for a half hour, and made those who ruined her day regret it for the rest of their short lives. (Average time of death: 1 second after line of sight established)

As she returned to her apartment, she was lost in thought. She knew she could kill, she had done so in the past. To be able to do so casually as she had, though, worried her immensely. It was if she had been running on autopilot for the past three hours, taking the subway home in a black trenchcoat one size too big, carrying a backpack and two suitcases.

[Laughing Coffin] had let loose its final joke, it would no longer darken the world. She knew, though, that they were only a small part of a much larger game. The laptop she was rifling through right then gave evidence of that. It had been transmitting the entire Death Game up to an hour before she killed the Red Guild. Moreover, the one doing the transmitting had not used encryption, the laptop was not password protected, nothing resembling caution.

A whole new world of information was open to her, access to the Darknet, the shady cousin to the Internet used by criminals, businesses, and governments (good luck telling the difference). Through it, she spotted a job offer for a hit on one Sinon, found somewhere in Sasebo as of 8 hours ago.

'This can not be coincidence.' thought she, and looked at the offer more carefully. An array of images came up, including the scene she believed a waking nightmare: Laughing Coffin was carefully arranged around that creepy skull. Her eyes widened in fear for a moment, before she clamped down on herself. She could no longer be the terror-driven young teen that she had been. She had just been introduced to the Great Game.

As she got off the subway near her home, however, she received a much lesser shock. Endou and her two partners-in-crime were lounging nearby, laying in wait. Before the Death Game, Shino would have walked into their line of sight without noticing, now her senses seemed somehow more crisp, clear, or perhaps she was simply not purposely missing everything now. She thought of a number of things she could do to her tormentors now that she had let her killing intent loose, but then decided the better of it, instead simply walking in front of them as if she hadn't noticed.

"Asada..." came the voice from the alley, just as expected. She turned, slowly, as she always did before. Endou and her two fellow harpies had mentioned towards the alley, as if they expected her to follow them, as she had the day previous. "Come over here." said they; no doubt they intended to extort more money from her. Before, she might not have forgiven herself her folly; now Shino knew the difference between the two of them. "No, Endou." said she with the finality of an opening grave.

The three thugettes looked on in amusement, distinctly not taking the hint, before their leader said, "Oh, but Shino, we just want to protect you, even from yourself." She pulled out a pistol, causing Shino's eyes to narrow. "This is my big brother's. See? I can do that, I have the strength to."

The sound of approaching footsteps entered Shino's consciousness, and her eyes turned the direction she heard them coming from. "Somehow, I don't think I need that kind of protection." said she, in a loud, clear, almost brazen tone of voice. "I can even give you two reasons why, you obnoxious harpy."

That received exactly the result she was expecting; the girl eyed the pistol carefully as it pointed her way, not needing to act. An airsoft gun would simply sting, nothing compared to real pain.

Her one-time tormentor asked, "Oh, is that obnoxious little boy going to come and rescue you again, you little tramp?"

The pistol was pressed against her forehead, but Shino chuckled. "No. In the second case, the safety's on, you overweight cow..."

As an enraged Endou pulled the gun back to check the safety, she heard two words from Shino's left. "FREEZE! POLICE!"

Asada Shino merely looked up at Endou, all sweet to the officer as she muttered just loud enough for the older girl to hear, "First? Because the police tend to remember stupidly foolish actions, like yours."

[Sinon] smiled poisonously to no one's benefit but her own. Why fight battles on your own, when you do not have to? Sometimes it's easier to let your enemies do your dirty work.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 30 Days)

* * *

Shirotaka Nanami had survived a second Death Game. She had lost her arms and legs, but unlike the others, she was still very much alive. That by itself made it a very good day for her.

Laying down on a table in the den, surrounded by her nakama, she remembered when she had returned. The brief time she had with her brother, Akira, before he had been ripped away by a second VRMMO, had been the brightest time in her life, even as she had begun recovering. Even though his loss hurt, at least she had gotten to say hello again, unlike so many victims of SAO. For goodness sakes, he even appreciated the actions of the frontliners that had gotten her out. For a time, she thought that perhaps he might actually break out of his shell.

That was before his obsession with the AMUSphere, the device that succeeded the NervGear she wore for two years. It worried her, what he was doing with that thing so akin to the one that could have killed her, but then he seemed to do weird things with it, merging it with two others of its kind. When Akira obsessed about something, he went all in, pushing all the limits that he could.

Perhaps it was better that he had been gone when she had been kidnapped for another Death Game. She didn't know how well he could have taken it if she had been yanked away from him again. Even when her limbs were being chopped from her, she worried more about him.

She did not remember much about the one that saved her, only that in the lighting of that room, her eyes appeared to glow red as she ran the teen attacking her through. She had been visited again by the girl; she wondered if this was her guardian angel, or perhaps her guardian devil. After what she had been through, it wouldn't have surprised her either way.

Now, though, Nanami had a new hope brought to her, ironically enough by Akira's work in reverse-engineering the AMUSphere. He had left a massive array of notes behind, including notes on how to increase the sensation from the real world on its wearers, how the new limbs the Faeries flew on operated, and how to use multiple sets of macros to be able to control three sets of entire bodies in a VR environment.

Shirotaka Akira had also happened upon accidental feedback, something that could cause phantom pain IRL. He had then purposely caused the same feedback, to give himself phantom senses, as if his fingers were touching something not there, in order to clue him in to what was happening with the other avatars he simultaneously controlled.

Using the Medicuboid the hospital still had on hand, Nanami had gone through her brother's notes, cross-referencing them with the newest batch of prostheses that had their computer algorithms available online. Today she would try it out, a combination of an AMUSphere for control, prosthetic arms and legs to replace the ones taken from her, and a notepad from her brother's mad science to translate her intent into action.

Releasing herself from the Medicuboid, Nanami sighed. It was time to learn to use arms not her own. The doctors did not know about her experiment with the device that had sent so many to who knows where, but perhaps a little bit of Akira's mad science had taken hold in his younger sister, that or inspiration. The prosthetic arms went on, twitching slightly.

Her friends, the true ones that had stuck by her through all of what had happened to her, smiled. They had attached the other two limbs; they couldn't properly connect through her seared skin, but maybe this might do the trick, might make for something good coming out of the ALO Disaster.

Her best friend looked to her, slowly and carefully attaching the AMUSphere to the rest of the rig, then slowly lowering it onto her head. "For Science!" she joked, getting a laugh from the assembled group, before swallowing her fear, saying the two words that saw her to her first Death Game: "Link Start!"

As the AMUSphere began feeding the information between her real body and the false limbs, Nanami could only look on in wonder, her eyes widening in shock as the prostheses followed her every whim, every need, every gesture. Her friends looked on, clapping, taping the event, even cheering, preparing for what might come now that she had been rebuilt, stronger, faster, better than ever before.

She would take what those insane madmen had done to her, both in IRL and in SAO, take those wounds with pride, so that others might have a chance at a better life. It has been said that night is always darkest just before dawn, and Shirotaka Nanami damned well intended to prove it.


	8. 1-8: Three Funerals And A Funeral

Three Funerals... And a Funeral

* * *

(4 Days After Zero Hour)

* * *

This was the fourth funeral Asada Shino went to that day. It was by far the worst for her.

She had resolved herself to going to the funerals of each of the four fellow 'players' in the Death Game that she had slain; it was the least she could do for them.

The members of Laughing Coffin had been rapidly cremated after their individual autopsies, their families having received some inducement to do so. Shino had a bit of an inkling as to which family might have provided the money or muscle required to force the point.

Laughing Coffin had proved to be far more visible in death than they were in life. Shino hadn't placed certain chunks of the Death Game online on shock video sites, even as much as she might have liked to. She hadn't needed to, some deranged soul had placed the video, carefully edited, on YouNoob. The outrage elicited from those videos insured that whoever placed it online was in just a little less trouble than Sinon was, unless whoever had put the hit out on the now-known vigilante was the one who put it up.

Shaking her head, Shino thought back to last night, when she had noticed the first goon showing up near her apartment. It had taken a bit of self-control to keep from taking him out, but she had been reading up on the habits of highly effective serial killers. Rule number one was 'never shit where you sleep'. Instead, the silenced Sig Sauer stayed in her improvised holster. Just as well, too, because a few moments later, she had spied a second goon, and then a third, likely searching the area Kyoji had been taken from.

Now, dressed up in her best dress clothes, Shino entered the parlor. She wore her bulletproof glasses as always, they still brought some measure of security to her, but she knew she was going to need to leave them soon. When she did her work, to find the ones who had put the hit on Sinon, she was going to need to keep a much different appearance.

When she entered the room they were holding the ceremony, though, she stopped in shock at the number of people who had come. A second look, and she began thinking about leaving; most of those present had the look of thugs, and loosely-worn coats had suspicious bulges right where shoulder and hip holsters would be.

If Shino had to guess, little Kyoji had been 'Family'. So very much about the hit job became so clear.

Swallowing her fear whole, she began making her way forwards toward Kyoji's mother and father. They were shell-shocked, no surprise considering the manner in which their sons had been taken from them. Giving the polite condolences that were expected, along with brief thoughts on how alive Kyoji had seemed the day that she had seen him last, she moved on to the next man in the receiving line.

Tono Issei looked at the young girl before him, and speaking her solemn commiseration, something seemed off about her. Thanking her for thinking of her, he watched her as she approached the coffin, some instinct triggering. Kyoji had never brought any girls out to the compound, that must be it, thought he as he looked on at her, listening carefully.

"So, Kyoji, here we are. I really can't believe you're gone." said Shino, tears coming from her eyes now that she had time to think on the betrayal. She had actually liked Kyoji, maybe not romantically, but he was closer to her than any other person she had known. It made his turning on her burn all the more, and she closed her eyes to calm herself down. "You said you wanted to be my first kiss. I laughed at the time, but now... Now..."

Tono shook his head, and got up from his seat. Acting on some impulse, he reached out to the young teen, placing his hand gently on her shoulder. "I had no idea Kyoji was already looking for a girlfriend. It's funny, they grow up so fast, until..." He looked down at Shino, and said, "Don't worry, young miss. His killer will be found, and brought to real justice."

Looking up, Shino forced herself not to freeze up at that promise that was to her a threat. "Thank you." she choked out, trying to pass it off as a sob, before slowly making her way to leave.

As one of his retainers walked up to his side, Tono shook his head. "I hope it's nothing, but something seemed off with that girl. I'll want you to have someone look into her, what's her name?"

"She signed the funeral book, 'Asada Shino,' sir."


	9. 1-9: Momentum For A Bullet

Momentum For A Bullet

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 5 Days)

* * *

Sugou Nobuyuki was just finishing up one last contract, everything was going so very well, surprisingly enough. He had just passed the critical mass he needed in order to be able to make his dream come true, Grave of Guns Online was ready to be started up.

Oh, there had been small hiccups here and there, it was to be expected in the business world, after all. Laughing Coffin would not be joining the test, he had found out three days ago from a contact of his from two different sources. Indeed, it seemed that someone or someones had enough of their particular version of a Death Game. He had seen the videos sans redaction, it was not a pretty sight.

However, now he had a new potential player for the game, if Kikuoka could be believed, and Sinon could be caught. The military researcher would get the source he needed for his AIs. Sugou was not fooled by some of the misdirection. After all, what else would the JSDF need a Seed with no players for? Placing the Seed server out in the middle of the Pacific was the final piece Sugou needed to put the puzzle together.

He looked at his schedule, somewhat annoyed with what was coming up the end of the month. He would actually need to go to one of those obnoxious high schools, the prize for a group of programmers in the school proper. Oh, the lip service to education might be nice press, but unless there was a programmer he could raid for Belsoft, then it was wasted time in the end. Not like any of the students there would ever come up with a killer app.

Still, though, it never hurt to keep oneself in the public eye, the virtual prison warden shrugged. After all, that gave him some legitimacy in the public view, it was something he could use, to minimal cost for himself. Tedious as it might be, Sugou believed, PR was entirely a safe endeavor for his business.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 5 Days)

* * *

Tono Issei was enjoying the sunny day. It would not be too long before the cherry blossoms started flying, and he wanted to get in as many of these rare days as he could. After all, not one person knew how long he had left, and to waste a crisp day like this would be a crime.

His underlings kept coming to where he was over the course of the day; they would all have to wait at the clubhouse while he finished this round of golf, the first he would be able to get in this year. The cold winds were beginning to wind down for the season, which would begin his time calming himself with the sound of iron striking graphite.

Soon the round came to an end, though, and Tono and his caddy slash bodyguard made their way to the Nineteenth Hole. It had been a good round, he had shaved two swings off last year's best. He still would never be a pro golfer, but the almost Zen-like calm being on the course was something he needed after the hectic past few days.

Finally, though, it was time to get back to business, and as he walked through the doors, he found several of his retainers waiting for him. The first was a somewhat loathsome man that he would have preferred letting go (over a cliff), but snuff films had been profitable for his gang for some time. The report that man gave indicated that while Laughing Coffin had gotten themselves ended in singularly graphic fashion, that the computers they had on site were ruined by the use of gasoline, more than likely by their slayers. The Tono Syndicate was safe from discovery by the police.

More retainers, original gangsters all, reported their individual groups' successes (and in two cases, failures). One retainer had found out who PoH had been, one Vassago Cassals. Tono decided that it was simply too bad Vassago was unavailable for retribution for his part in turning Shinkawa Souichi into a psychopath, but the fact that his mother Maria was still living in Japan left at least one outlet for Yakuza justice. Six underlings of that retainer would carry out the hit.

The retainer responsible for the hunt for Sinon had to report a singular lack of success. All of the usual and several of the unusual sources of information had been tapped, but it was as if Sinon had vanished into thin air. That retainer had offered his pinkies in exchange for his dishonor, but Tono held up his hand to stop him. "We knew this one might take a while; I take no offense at the speed of the search." said Tono, and with that, the man relaxed ever-so-slightly, vowing to redouble his efforts.

Several other retainers talked over their operations, most with flowery praise, one noting that an underling had attempted to steal from the till casually. That drew some small censure for the retainer in question, but the thief had been dealt with appropriately. The police had found him yesterday, hung by his own innards.

One last retainer came forward. "I have had Asada Shino's information packaged for you, Tomo-dono." Sliding a manilla folder forward, the man backed away carefully, adding, "I did note several oddities. First, she has already ended her first life, done at the age of nine." That drew a cautious whistle from one retainer; the story rapidly was told about how she had ended a drug-addled robber with his own weapon, drawing nods of respect.

"Unfortunately, the event left her mentally scarred; she is pathologically afraid of firearms as a result." Several sighs escaped the lips of the retainers; it was a shame to waste that kind of potential. The collected gangsters were a little surprised to see Tono smiling, though, and he said, "Excellent. She would make for a good test to see if Nobuyuki-san's technology can work to heal damage of the mind, like we had planned for Souichi." A few smiles slipped in, at least the death of one potential heir would not be for nothing.

Reaching for a saki cup, Tono was amused by the possibilities, even as the retainer continued. "She is not a pureblood. One of her great-great-grandfathers on her father's side is Finnish, no doubt an artifact of the Winter War." Tono arched an eyebrow at that, before beginning to fill the sake cup. "And? If the girl has killed before, if we can break her fear, we can still use her."

The retainer coughed lightly, before adding fearfully, "There is also one other matter as well." Closing in, the retainer leaned over to whisper into Tono's ear just as the leader knocked back his sake.

Tono immediately spewed out the sake after hearing his retainer's voice. Reaching for a napkin, the Yakuza leader tried cleaning the mess he had made from sake leaving through his nose, the burning sensation intense. After hacking and gagging for a few minutes, Tono looked upon his retainer with something resembling fear in his eyes. "HIM?!" Calming himself as best he could, he added, "He must be into his nineties, at the least! He can not still be killing!"

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus Seven Days)

* * *

It had been a full week since she had killed, Asada Shino noted to herself as she began her routine. Thinking back on how much had been changed by that one day, she began her first series of pushups. She had been so very lucky, she knew now; if Laughing Coffin's members had all had their firearms on them, she would never have left that room alive.

"Seven... Eight... Nine..." The count continued as she mentally checked off each set of exercises, drawn from an Israeli training manual she had bought online using some of the cash Laughing Coffin had kept on hand. She needed to toughen herself up if she was going to follow this path, and Sayaret Matkal had built up a reputation of being some of the hardest bastards out there, according to the darknets. As she continued into situps, Shino knew she was light years away from being that dangerous; she needed to learn fast, build up fast, if she wanted to survive.

That was why she had chosen to join the Go club. She could see to her own physique, and the school had nothing that would help her with learning how to draw her pistol faster or the right way, so instead she trained her mind there. The game taught a good deal about maneuver warfare, far more useful to her than Chess. Likewise, it gave her the excuse to keep the appearance of the moe bookworm until she was better prepared.

"Thirty eight... Thirty nine... Fourty!" That being said, she had already noticed some of the changes her exercise had brought to her. Shino was faster, stronger than before; she would still use surprise in order to take Tono's men, but now at least she might be able to survive around light failure of her plans.

Sitting up, she took out another of the items she had found on E-Slay, a radio tracker. The three men that had been searching the area around her apartment were driving away, and she wanted to know where. If Tono hadn't been around, Souichi might have found the help he needed after SAO, instead of dragging himself and his brother to their demises. Tonight, she would see if she could do it again.

Preparing herself, Shino hit the shower, cleansing herself before preparing herself for the night's activity. Binding her chest with an ace bandage hurt, but it was the first part of her disguise. She followed that with a white t-shirt. Knowing her own weakness to fast-moving lead, a second layer of cloth strips cocooned her body, this time kevlar straps made for shipping, wrapped just loosely enough to allow easy movement.

The open hoodie and black cargo pants went on over that, before the oversized trenchcoat followed. A red scarf with kevlar as an inside layer went on over a voice shifter, to drop the timbre of her voice two octaves, just in the range for a particularly feminine man. Finally, tiny combat boots with a few extra inches of tread finished the outfit.

Sliding the rest of her gear into the coat, Shino looked into the mirror, only to find someone else staring back at her. Sliding Wraith's paired Glock 9mm pistols into the pockets in the trenchcoat, [Death Gun] simply sighed once, before going out to test herself, to see if she was able to gun down a man in cold blood.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 7 Days)

* * *

Kikuoka Seijirou tightened the coat around his body; the cold weather outside was the harbinger of the winter soon to come. He wished he did not have to be here, but there was one person he thought might have more information for him about the remaining two members of Laughing Coffin, the two trapped by their own minds. [Ghoul] and [Catherine] had both been committed by their parents after they escaped Kayaba's Death Game, but Kikuoka could get nothing from either of them.

Instead, he hoped to get some more information from Maria Cassals, the mother of one of the 300 trapped and then taken by the ALO disaster. While normally she would have nothing of use for him, she had kept in contact with several of the other parents from the VR Game Disasters, and tried to counsel them through their grief. While not a professional psychologist, Cassals was surprisingly good at what she did. A devout Catholic, she considered it part of her calling, now that her son was gone.

If she had known what her son had done in SAO, it might have broken her, Kikuoka firmly believed. He also found it hard to believe in a benevolent creator, if one as polite and kindhearted as the elder Cassals could have given birth to a monster like PoH. A devout Atheist, Kikuoka could still find the use in the morals of the woman.

Approaching her on the sidewalk near Saint Michael's before a Mass was likely a low move even for him, Kikuoka believed, but he needed to know if she had heard anything new from the other parents. After all, his investigation into Sinon was still coming up blank, the killer of killers remaining a complete mystery to the police. As he approached, the middle-aged woman must have heard his footsteps, because she turned then to look at him.

A sad smile came across Maria's lips as she saw the lawman, and she asked, "Is there something I can do to help you, Investigator?" with strained patience. After all, she always seemed to sense that the officer was hiding something important from her, and she suspected it had to do with her son. She tried her best to help the varied cases she knew about along, but the man was beginning to get on her nerves.

As Kikouka thought how best to frame the questions he had for her, Maria's eyes opened wide as she looked to where two cars' doors were opening as one. Curiosity piqued, the investigator turned his head to see six large men emerge, and his eyes flared as he spotted the bulges in their coats, spied the faces and remembered some of the local biker gangs, now in suits.

As he saw one of them reach inside his coat, he spotted gunmetal coming out from the gangster's coat, and with a strength born of worry, Kikuoka grabbed Maria by the shoulder, pushing towards the cathedral doors. "Get inside, now!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, the other Yakuza members looking at the shooter incredulously as the two entered the nave.

"Go get help, get someone to call the police!" the officer said as the first bullet flew, clipping his left shoulder before he could get behind the stone arch. "HURRY!" Drawing his .38 Caliber Police Special, Kikuoka simply shook his head. "Well, I guess that holy ground isn't that sacred any more." said he, as two more bullets flew by, one of them striking a running parishioner in the back.


	10. 1-10: The Means

The Means...

* * *

Today was shaping up to be an absolute hell of a day.

She had followed one car of Tono's goons using the radio gear she had bought using Laughing Coffin's ill gotten gains. It had taken her some time to do so; it was not her first time using the tracking beacons, fortunately. She knew that if this batch were going according to schedule, they would be heading to Saint Michael's Cathedral, one of the few buildings that had not been torn down and replaced in the past hundred years.

The cathedral had seen better days, but repairs of the stained glass windows were ongoing; the church had the funds to replace the damaged sections of those ancient works of art. Even now, scaffolding was in place along the front of the church, across the image of Michael the Archangel pinning Satan in the form of a red dragon to the Earth with his spear.

She had spotted a second car, one similar to the first, and checked it out. She highly doubted Tono's boys had suddenly found religion; the thought made her giggle a little bit. The voice distorter picked it up, and turned it into a disturbing tenor laugh.

Tono's groups exited the cars then; she noticed one woman's eyes widen. She was unprepared though, when the newest of Tono's recruits had gone for the pistol in his suit jacket, shooting the man next to her. As the man pushed the (Western?) woman into the church as best he was able, he drew a police revolver, and took cover in the narthex.

The other five members of Tono's syndicate started berating the first; their observer thought she could pick out several choice obscenities, as well as insults about the man's genetic composition. They pulled on masks in order to cover themselves after the fact, and as she watched them, the other five drew a variety of shooting irons of their own.

As the six goons made their way towards the church, the congregants ran inside as fast as their legs would take them. Naturally, with all of the shoving, kicking, and stomping going on, several of the parishioners had been hurt badly in the stampede. When they had closed in closer, the policeman slid out slightly and fired off two rounds into the chest of the idiot who had started this mess in the first place.

Luck was not with Kikuoka, though, two more rounds making contact, the first clipping his gun in a display of great skill or dumb luck, wrenching it out of his hand. The second round impacted his ribs; the girl watching from across the street couldn't tell how badly the officer was hurt. Likewise unfortunate was the fact that Kikuoka's target got right back up. 'Shit, he must have a vest on.'

This certainly was not what Asada Shino had expected when going to church; it appeared they certainly really didn't appreciate the over-length sermon.

The goons rushed in through the doors, kicking the gun away from what Shino suspected to be a cop, like any smart criminal, before dragging him inside and closing the doors behind them. She began to think over the best possible thing to do, suspecting it involved running fast, running hard. Everyone else around her was already running save two idiots recording everything on their cellphones.

Another gunshot rang out. Shino heard a child scream for her mother. She put the two together. Shino was lucky that she had taken such measures to try to ensure she wouldn't be identifiable as herself, because people tend to remember those they see running towards gunfire.

Looking towards the door, she dismissed that entrance out of hand; the gumi no doubt would have someone watching it. Instead, Shino turned, trying to run to other entrances. She spotted a back entrance, apparently the entrance from the parsonage, but it was already locked for the service. One side entrance likewise was locked; the other side door, nice clear glass, led to the sanctuary, where worship was held before, and now where [hostages] were being lined up. She spotted the officer being dragged in, bound with zip ties; there would be no help from within.

She continued looking around for an entrance until she ended up back out front, and spotted the scaffolding once more. "This is a really, really bad idea..." said she, before making her way up the ladder on one side. Climbing perhaps a little too quickly and carelessly, she slid over a railing for the work, right up next to the glass speartip impaling the Devil's neck, only for the boards underneath her feet to give.

The section below that had boards better set luckily, as Shino landed on the side she had injured during the Death Game. As she slowly got up, elbows and hands banged up, she noticed a chunk of wood coming out from that side; not thinking about it, she pulled it out. "Shit." The Kevlar had blunted the wood, without it she would have just impaled herself. 'Must be more careful in the future.'

Looking down, she spotted the first shooter pointing his pistol at a middle-aged woman, and heard through the glass, "Time to die."

Shino didn't take time to aim; she didn't have time to aim. She simply drew and fired in a single motion. The 9mm kiss of death went down, perhaps by luck, perhaps by instinct, through the back of the first thug's skull, shattering the Dragon's forehead in the process. Taking her other pistol, she punched the rest of the shards she might get caught on out of the way, then jumped down the five feet to the choir loft. In a deep, raspy voice, brought on by more pained breathing, [Death Gun] snarked, "Well. Damn, he had... that right."

The three Yakuza on the ground took no time at all to start shooting; Shino took two to the chest, knocking her head over heels in pain. 'Stupid stupid stupid... Talk after they're dead...' thought she, as she pulled off a glove to check for bullet holes. The Kevlar webbing had done its job, but she would have bruises from getting shot for days. 'Right where my heart is. OK, get up get up get back up!'

Silhouetted by the prismatic glory of the Archangel striking down his former boss, the slayer rose from the choir loft, appearing to have red eyes, perhaps by some trick of the reflections. Glaring down at the three gumi in front of her, that disturbing voice spoke out in English, "There are those that say that God is dead, that he has forgotten his flock. Those who do evil never seem to be punished... It would appear he sent me as the answer."

"Forgive them, oh Lord, for they sin on, and are in dire need of Your retribution." At first, the gangsters had to find Shino; spotting her, they were shocked at the fact that she was back on her feet without apparent injury, and at her disguise, which made her look like a burn victim might from the jaw down. Two pistols barked out rounds quickly, causing two of them to fall to the ground, struck dead from above.

The third had a slightly stronger sense of self-preservation, and ducked underneath a pew. Prevented from taking her preferred shot, Shino instead aimed for the man's ankles, taking her time with the shot. One shot from each pistol later, he found himself maimed for the rest of his short life, his feet useless beneath him as the trauma from having one's bones splintered underneath took their toll.

Hearing the unfamiliar gunfire and some of the speech, the other two gumi headed towards the chapel. The one guarding the side door looked around, but not up; his killer had time to aim before sending him to the afterlife with a single round above and between the eyes, going in at a downward angle. The last one got a look at how the man died, and after diving into the chapel twisted to look up. The last thing he saw was nine millimeters of bullet heading for his right eye.

Shino looked at the man she had shot in the ankles, noting his pistol was flung far away. Taking fifteen seconds to exult in the bloodshed she had caused, she began to make her way downstairs to finish the day's good work. She decided then and there that she would keep the Kevlar straps, but something would need to be done to protect her head. Two of the bullets coming her way had come uncomfortably close; she would need time to come up with the proper solution.

As she stalked the last of the would-be hitmen, he shuddered in fear, then his eyes widened in recognition. This one had been at the funeral, Shino thought, and in an inspired moment of deception, used one pistol to make the sign of the Cross, as if in benediction of the act to be finished. The other pistol came up, as the man said, "You... You're..."

A pull of the trigger silenced him. "I and this gun are one and the same. Our name: Death Gun."

As Shino began striding to leave the now-bloodied sanctuary, Maria Cassals looked at her sadly, and spoke out, "You know what you are doing is wrong, don't you?"

Her rescuer turned to her and said sadly, "Yes. It's also the only thing that can be done. Pray for me."


	11. 1-11: Justify The End

...Justify The End

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 7 Days 18 Hours)

* * *

"Never again. I'm never jumping into another sitch like that again." said Asada Shino, known to the world as the vigilante [Sinon], and to her victims as none other than [Death Gun].

She had seen preparations for a hunt by dozens of police, all at once, all for her. She had found it surprising, demoralizing, but now that she had a chance to think things over, Shino had practically begged for their attention.

Slaughtering six swine in human form in a church, all in front of what must have been a police officer, a priest, and a few dozen other people would have forced their hands. All of that was despite the fact that they had gunned down the officer and three other people, and had threatened the life of a fourth, their original target. The fact that the police officer was lucky to have been wearing his bulletproof vest saved his life, but he had not been conscious when she had left. The video one of the churchgoers had shot on his phone likely didn't help matters one bit; the fact she had disguised herself paid dividends early and often earlier on.

The police had searched for a thin man, somewhere between 1.7 and 1.8 meters tall, suffering from asthmatic breathing with a baritone voice, and wearing a trenchcoat and hoodie. Shino had made sure she looked like none of those easily, slipping around the side of the church to pick up the backpack she had to leave behind. It took her a bit of work jamming everything in, but once she was done, the only thing that showed similar to Sinon now was a red scarf. She flipped it so the red was around her neck, showing only the white on the other side.

That quick work completed, Shino walked around the other side of the parsonage, slipping on the pair of glasses she usually wore and an ochre-and-white windbreaker she had found on sale. Disguise complete, she sighed as she remembered where the nearest train station was, and walked around the block near where she had started the day's bloody work.

Five minutes later, the police arrived, having been delayed by needing to drive around an accident. Watching from a distance, she shook her head as more and more cars pulled up. The ambulances began running through the cordon Shino was outside, and as the police began making the rounds, she paused, trying to come up with a believable lie. One of the people nearby who looked mildly stoned handed her one, saying he had just arrived, and was wondering what the show was about.

When a (rather handsome young) officer came to interview Shino, she said, "I saw the beginning of it, six men came out of those two cars..." She pointed them out, illegally parked on the side of the road for a quick getaway. "When one of them pulled a gun, I froze, and saw him shoot the man in the suit. After that, I hid, I couldn't do anything..." Incidentally, only the last part was a half-truth. She certainly had frozen during that first second, shocked by the stupidity of drawing a gun in broad daylight like that, and she had hidden well in plain sight, as [Death Gun]. She couldn't do anything as Shino, though, she found she still needed the anonymity that her alter ego provided.

"And what about after that, miss..." asked the officer in a slow Kanto region drawl. Shino answered in a quivering voice (she needed to think back to her fears), "I saw... Him. Larger than life, chasing those low-lifes into the church... I heard more gunfire, and pulled back, not wanting to see..." She closed her eyes, not wanting to give herself away to the officer by where her eyes might dart. "I wish I had that strength."

The officer's interest piqued with that comment, but any question he might have asked was quickly stopped by one of the bystanders holding up his phone. "Holy shit guys, someone recorded the battle in the cathedral!" Shino's gasp of surprise was drowned out by the rush of people to watch, morbid curiosity getting the better of them as they murmured, pushed, shoved, and shouted, trying to get a glimpse of the execution of six dregs of humanity.

The officer was drawn up in the fervor, his captain wanted a description of [Sinon], and here he was, about to have it handed to him on a silver platter. Shino's curiosity got the better of her as well, but she had the sense of mind to look it up herself on her cellphone. As she started the browser, her eyes caught the officer being wheeled out on a stretcher, his hands waving in the air, apparently trying to give instruction to the officers around him. She smiled, one more good thing had come out of this mess.

It took the police four hours to interview everyone, cross-reference everything, and interview them again. The two sets of videos, [Sinon]'s entrance into Saint Mike's and his raging gun battle inside the church, were combined the most useful evidence of the scene that the bystanders, both inside and outside, could provide; each of them were given a card for if they had any further information to give.

As Shino thought back on her way home, she could only smile. The police had gotten perhaps too much knowledge, which was almost as bad as none at all. They would need to go through all of it; mistakes would be made. 'No,' she corrected herself, 'Mistakes had already been made, all to my benefit.' Their description of [Sinon] would bring them nowhere near to her, so long as she played smart and laid low for at least a week or two. The real problem is that her alter ego had become infamous overnight.

Before now, only those who kept up on the killings of Laughing Coffin knew that name, knew what it might represent. Now, she had fans, a fact that bothered her. AMVs of the two videos linked together and set to music simultaneously fascinated her in how fast the Internet could spawn memes, worried her, and made her a little sick. After all, who in their right mind would set up the gunfight to the Caramelldansen? Worse, who would actually laugh at it like so many of the commentators apparently had?

The other problem that such exposure brought to her was the fact that everyone knew what that version of her [Death Gun] disguise looked like; she was going to need to change disguises every time she did a job now. She thought on that, and then on the irony of it all. Her dream of becoming a police officer looked impossible now; she had said goodbye to her weaknesses, and only now started to feel some regret about it.

Hell, she did think of her activities as a kind of career now, one that she knew inevitably would end her life early, but perhaps more valid than joining the law. Where the police could only react to the actions of criminals, she could just simply act to cull them, and more permanently than she would be able to if she were following the law. No, her boast to [Xaxa] was not a lie. This was _true justice_.

She finally got home, checking her mailbox to find two shipping notices. The first package waiting for her came from Akihibara, an electronics container weighing about 3 pounds. She thought about that, "Who could have sent something like that for me? I didn't order anything new..." Opening the other envelope, she found a matching notice of receipt, this time from some tourist island pesthole in the Madeiras called Porto Santo. "All right, this is beginning to get slightly... No, very creepy."

Opening the door to her apartment, Shino simply had to shake her head. "Something else to check out now, great." Turning her laptop on, she began looking up who or what holed up in those two locations. 'All right, one of Tono's legitimate businesses runs from that zip code.' thought she, noting a construction agency whos web page had the face of one of the 'gentlemen' at Kyoji's funeral.

Porto Santo, on the other hand, was a mystery. Spain and Portugal came within a hair's breadth of a shooting war over the Madeiras in the late 2010's, and a lot of the tourism that was that island's life blood dried up because of it. Only now beginning to recover, it had taken investment from a business conglomerate to keep it a going concern. A look at the Thorne Enterprise Group showed a bland international real estate and escrow business, nothing that should be out of line.

"Ahh well, something to pick up tomorrow then." said she, still wondering what was going on. Switching to the Darknet, she began looking up hits, search and job, on her alter ego again, and found to her complete lack of surprise that there had been more queries up to three hours ago. The last notice on that job said, "Drop it. CT13."

"Well, that's clear as mud." Shino whispered to herself, before looking up the newest set of videos and remixes. Fame was not what she had aimed for, but now that she had it, she would use it as one more item in a growing toolbox; she chuckled, and added a comment in English. The only problem, though, is that she miss-typed the old phrase, reversing it into "The means... justify the end." by accident.


	12. 1-12: Connections

Connections

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 9 Days)

* * *

Ahh, another exhausting day at school, thought Asada Shino as she lay on her futon, going over the various lessons she had to listen to that day, such drudge work compared to those few brief moments of exhilaration and terror behind what she considered to be her best friends. Looking over to her growing collection of firearms, she then took a peek at the two boxes she had collected from the mail service on her way home.

That had not been the only stop on her way home. The police needed her statements from two seperate incidents, neither of which were entirely truthful. Shino thought back to Endou's little mess. That one had been fairly easy to fix. The police didn't seem to entirely buy her lie, but her claim that the older student had been trying to help her with her fear of guns, combined with the fact she was unwilling to press charges, meant that the only the Disturbing the Peace charge would stick. As much as she disliked Endou, Shino had a use for the woman, if only she could massage the situation properly.

Her being on the scene of a deadly gun battle, that had been a bit more difficult to get away with. She did her best to make it seem like she'd gone into hiding when the bullets started flying, but had no clue if the cops had cameras on the scene or not. She used the video of [Death Gun] to try and get the officer speaking with her to go off on a different route; unfortunately, she had linked to the Carameldansen version of the video. His reaction to that was admittedly hilarious, but then he had tried to get her talking some more about what happened; Shino thought that he might still have been suspicious. Nothing she could do about it though.

Now, rolling over, she began opening the two boxes. The first box had a duplicate of the headset that she took from Laughing Coffin, only with more detail on it, white with a forest green stripe up what almost looked like a futuristic version of a samurai helmet's horns. Setting that aside, she opened up the other box, finding another such headset, only this time in blue and gold, and with a stick drive hidden in the box.

"Color me officially interested now." said she, sliding the drive into her tablet computer. "Training Program Grave of Guns Online. Yeah, nothing suspicious about that at all."

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 9 Days)

* * *

As she lay back helplessly on the examination table, Shirotaka Nanami's eyes closed, the tears threatening to flood out.

The past week had taught her who her friends were. Kids she had played alongside, fought alongside in SAO had shied away from her, thinking her cursed. Indeed, she thought herself cursed. To be trapped in a second death game, only to lose all her limbs? It horrified her, but not so much as what one of the students in that asylum slash high school had called her (and to her face, even).

The Iron Maiden.

They had joked that now, there was no way she would find a husband, as if that was all she was good for! The shame, the hatred, it all flowed through her body like poison, moreso now that she knew that the sensate prosthetic limbs, which would have allowed her some semblance of a normal life, wouldn't work for her thanks to her nerves being seared so far in.

She wondered, not for the first time, if that red-eyed woman was some kind of devil meant to ensure she would suffer for longer in this life, and as the orderlies transferred her back to a quadriplegic wheelchair, Nanami thought that it would have been better if she had died, that she had not survived the second death game.

As she came back to her room, she noticed a tall, somewhat handsome gentleman with hexagonal glasses and an expensive suit there. She found the one arm in a sling to be kind of an oddity, but with the way the rest of her life had been going, what was one more bit of strangeness? "Hello, Miss Shirotaka. I'm Kikouka Seijirou from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications."

"Let me guess. [Laughing Coffin.]" said Nanami, earning herself a sigh and a nod from the government man. "Seems to be the only reason that you expensive suits come out of the woodworks. Well, I believe you have a captive audience."

The attempt at gallows humor caused a slight grimace to cross the officer's face. "Well, that's part of it, anyway. I myself just got released from here thanks to them." Nanami felt bad enough to wince at the small lie. "It seems like I've been dealing with them since their escape from SAO. Also, I may have some small help for you in your current state. You see, my organization still has a few Medicubes, which I am able to requisition for cases like this." He waved his free hand across the chair, adding, "Depending on testing, I might be able to use your help with something I've been working on."

Nanami's eyes narrowed dangerously as she considered Kikouka's offer. "What kind of project are you talking about? You'll need my parents' permission first." She thought back to Akira's work in hacking ALO, how he talked about multitasking and control of multiple avatars. Thinking back, she remembered about some of the really weird stuff he claimed to be able to pull off. Offering a wan smile of her own, Nanami thought quickly. "I may have a project of my own, after all."

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 10 Days)

* * *

Shirou Endou had just had a long week, full of new experiences that she cared not to repeat.

She had found out what jail was like for that time, during the periods between when her father had called the lawyer, to the time when bail could be gotten. She had then paid for her indiscretion at home; her father and brother both gave her a stern yelling-at, while her mother remained cool and distant from her.

Most of the charges against her ended up being dropped in the end, but Endou was banned from the computer until the next school day. She sighed, her parents knew so little about modern smartphones. She looked up her usual feeds, and spotted the surge in information about this [Sinon] character she had heard about during her brief stay behind bars.

"Who is Sinon?" she asked the air mockingly, searching for more knowledge on the sites her feeds pointed her to. Her eyes widened when she found the first YouNoob clip, one that one of the police responding to Sinon's first strike must have made. It showed Laughing Coffin on the hook swings, and Endou found herself horrified as she watched them swinging. "Shimbata..." escaped those lips, before moving onto the next video, following each in turn.

To say she was disturbed by the Carameldansen take would have been an understatement.

After exhausting her usual sources, she debated using the darknet with her phone. Her parents didn't know about being able to search that, 'might as well' thought Endou. That was when she found the video of Laughing Coffin's death game.

One of the girls featured frequently caught her eye almost immediately; she'd be a dead ringer for Shino. Endou's eyes narrowed, the reason she wasn't looking at jail time was due to Shino dropping her part in the charges (well earned, Endou thought, she had been a fool drawing that airsoft gun.) She watched the girl on the small screen get knocked over and trampled on, saw her make an insane leap in order not to end up stuck in the stairwell, saw her kill her first victim.

As Endou watched the horror continue on, she spotted Maybe-Shino's eyes as she strangled a girl driven mad to stop her, watched the Shino-alike repeatedly stab a handsome teenaged psychopath with a pair of scissors. She found herself fascinated and frightened by the scenes of the death game.

It was only when she re-watched the stabbing that she noticed Shino's eyes go red, a trick of the light, and her nearly eidetic memory quickly brought her back to the Cathedral killings. Bringing up the video, Endou paused it right when Sinon shot down her first group of thugs. Though the hoodie covered most of Sinon, Endou could still see the eyes. "That girl went unaccounted for... That girl is Sinon, her facial structure is the same... Ancient spirits above."

No one had cared about the moe poster girl, no one had thought much about her absence from school that day. If that was Shino, then Endou knew now that it had not been Shino that had been saved by the cop. Instead, the cop had saved her.

She was about to turn the phone off when she received a text message from Shino: 'Let's talk tomorrow.' Quivering with fear, Endou replied, "Un." before turning the phone off. "No. No. Anyone but her, _please..._ "


	13. 1-13: Conspiracies

Zero Hour: Conspiracies

* * *

(Zero Hour Minus Two Months)

* * *

It had been a long, hard road for the SAOvivors who had managed to escape Albion. Awakened from slumber by being shunted to an entirely new world, twenty of their own number gone and likely raised as hellish mockeries of life, battles to delay the inevitable long enough that they at least might escape, then after being cut off, fighting alongside the forces of the Fae factions in order to have the freedom to simply live.

In short, two mostly happy months for Vassago Cassals, the arch-murderer infamously known as [PoH] to the vast majority of the survivors of Kayaba's Death Game. He did not care for many of the other 300 survivors fighting alongside him; they were expendable bodies to soak bullets in his mind. Oh, there were a few he would have at least felt sorry about; oddly enough, he counted the commander of the reformed Knights of Blood among their number.

Now, though, the daily chance for fun times had come to an end. Even though he wouldn't care much if some of his fellow Fae 'accidentally' fell on Mate Chopper, he would not go out of his way to weaken them. A strong Fae presence meant a greater chance to gut Reconquista, a better chance to drown Cromwell in his own blood.

As he made his way off the Eagle, he made sure to keep his hood up. Kirito had seen his face before, and after hearing what the Sable Knight had done to the rebellion's strongest fliers, PoH thought better on the possibility of another encounter. He was crazy, not stupid.

A few of the Fae were holding up signs for certain members of the escapees from Sugou's control, and PoH's eyes widened as he saw his name on one of them. Not his in-game name, his Iarel last name. He quickly made his way over to the lovely young Salamander holding it, a smile of recognition on her face as she lowered it. "Do you really know who I am?" asked he, in a low voice filled with venom.

The grin on the woman widened. "Oh yes I do, my hackey-bloody hunny bunny." said the Salamander, in a tone that sounded sweet, far too sweet. "I've missed you for far, far too long, Master."

'Oh devils below. You fucking bastards, you put her in my path. I knew I should never have screwed her...' thought PoH, squeaking out, "Hello, [Hellebrone]."

Hellene Borgia smiled wickedly. She had PoH right where she wanted him.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 11 Days)

* * *

As Shino Asada took her place across from her former tormentor, she noted the ill-ease of the other woman. Like she had guessed, Endou at least suspected her of being a killer, perhaps even of being [Sinon]. It was a heady feeling, the turning about of who had control of her life now, but Shino needed to restrain herself if she was going to be able to make use of her former 'friend.'

"So, Shino..." Endou broke the silence as they sat in the mall food court. The hesitation in her voice confirmed Shino's suspicions. "Um... What is this about?" The older teenager seemed to slump forward a little bit, keeping her voice down. A smile and a piece of gear that looked like the child of a NervGear and an AMUSphere being pushed to the center of the table were the answer to Endou's question. "I don't know where to find out who makes these, I'm afraid. I kind of stumbled across one, and I'd like to know what it does, if it's some new virtual game controller." All of that was true, to a certain point.

Shino wasn't quite sure what Endou's response would be. Her eyes widening so much as to make it look they might shoot out of her head? Not something she had planned for. "Where did you find this? It's something like what they put on some of the patients where my brother works..." The worldly teen shut up quickly, as if she had already said too much, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"I think I need to show you something." Shino pulled out the laptop she had taken from [Laughing Coffin] and turned it towards Endou; the shock film of Wraith slowly torturing a victim to death with a pair of curved knives played. On the victim's head was the helmet Endou was turning about with her hands. "I really need to know what these are.

From the horrified look on the face of her sempai, Shino knew she had hit paydirt. Endou never could resist a mystery, the more bizarre the events surrounding the mystery, the more the unpleasant teenager would dig in with her devilish investigative skills. She had Endou right where she wanted her.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 29 Days)

* * *

"Damnit, Sugou, you told me these things wouldn't be traceable back to me!" screamed Tono-domo into the phone at the new bane of his existence. The three red helmets that Sugou had given Tono's snuff film director had all now been accounted for, after Sinon's assault on the boat the videos had been taped on. Unfortunately for Tono, they had been left there for the police to find by the vigilante, along with the films of their being used. Even now, Tono had to turn in a lot of the favors that he had built up over the years to cover his own backside.

"Now now, that's no way to talk with business partners, now is it, Tono-kun?" the mayhem entrepreneur sneered out. The helmets were quite useful for him; he needed to get the input of using firearms, their feel, their aiming, and perhaps with great morbidity, the feel of the impact in human flesh. He needed to make his prison/training simulator as real as possible action-wise, even as he used the excuse plot storyline from Zargas' Gun Gale Online that he had bought for a song after the ALO disaster. All the pieces were coming together so perfectly for Sugou, and now he just needed to clean up those who knew about the more unsavory particulars of his operations.

"I did make sure to tell you to have your men memorize how to ensure that those SRAIGears could be rendered into non-useful bits of plastic slag, Tono. Not only did they not take that into account, they recorded themselves using them in your little shows. You have no idea the amount of fast talking I have needed to do over the past six hours in order to keep this going." said Sugou in a more rational tone. "I have already taken receipt of the mental models that had been recorded up to that point; the money is in the escrow account, and will be released tomorrow into your laundry basket. I am afraid that this will have to conclude that business, I hope you understand."

Tono calmed himself, this could still be salvaged. "I do. I will have to bury that part of my operation for some time to come, though, thanks to that fucking psychopath throwing your dirty laundry out there for all to see." The Yakuza sub-boss sighed, and said, "I hope your project is worth it. Eight more of my men died to cover it." Tono then threw his disposable cellphone into the river his men had been driving him by.

"Incompetent, dimwitted orangutang." snickered Sugou. Tono had no way of knowing that the man who would be investigating this case was already under his thumb. Kikouka Seijirou had made one colossal error in coming to him for help with his project, but that was for another time. No, Kikouka would make an excellent stand-in right now, might even be in perfect position to take Tono out of play after he had been injured by those gang goons.

The only player in the game that he could not force to dance to his marionette strings right now was Sinon himself. The casual manner in which that man had brutally gunned down every man on Tono's ship made for excellent watching; he had his pet assassin, the one Tono thought belonged to him, plant a number of cameras on the ship, out of the way. Sinon never showed his face; the creepy-looking skull mask made sure of that. The action was top-notch, though, and Sugou thought it would be excellent if he could acquire Sinon as his assassin's apprentice.

Kikouka was now a very known factor. Thanks to the failure of so many VR firms that he had relied on, the RATH project was so far behind that it was in danger of cancellation. In a madness born of desperation, Kikouka had come with an offer for Sugou. In exchange for keeping investigations into Sugou's relatively heinous actions running around in useless circles, Kikouka would acquire the memories of three hundred newborn children from him. Thanks to the failure of the Soul Translator, in order to make the Soul Archetypes Kikouka needed, he would have to use duplicates of the machine that killed Akihiko Kayaba.

In short, Kikouka had asked Sugou to murder no less than three hundred children, all for science.

Sugou felt an overwhelming disgust of that man, but he needed the indirect immunity Kikouka could provide. The answer had come to him by looking over child mortality statistics; he would arrange to take the memories from those children who were going to die anyway.

Through that act of banal evil, Sugou had everyone who he knew exactly where he wanted them.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 29 Days)

* * *

"All right boys, listen up. You've already heard the commissar's speech, I don't need to repeat it. This man is our target." The commander of a small cell of militant Japanese communists clicked the controls, bringing up a rather unflattering picture of Sugou Nobuyuki. "This man would poison our nation by making the minds of our unfortunate proletariat into a prison. We need to stop him; our brothers in the mainland have given us his schedule."

The next thing that came up on the screen were the building plans for the SAO Kikan-sha Gakkoh, the school slash asylum used to deal with the SAO students still of school age. "This is the SAO Returnee School, where they house those survivors of that capitalist murdering pig Kayaba. Nobuyuki may have had something to do with the mess that caused the disappearance of a number of its students; what is known for sure is that he is going to be there in two days."

"We will breach each building with a BRDM-M each. Each building will need one platoon to lock down. I want this done by the numbers. Anyone who fights back will become a sacrifice for the Democratic Peoples' Free Republic of Japan. The central building will house our escape vehicles while we engage the bourgeois in false negotiations. Nobuyuki is to be brought to that building, dead or alive. We blow the schools a minute after we leave, destroying as many police vehicles as possible on our way out." The commander looked over one of his men carefully. "'Heartbreaker', leave the pretty girls alone this time, one of them is going to cut it off sooner rather than later." Several of the men started chuckling at the crude jest, but none of them would have minded much if the named man had ended up dying by 'accident'.

"Remember, Sugou Nobuyuki is our target. Our comrades across the sea want him out of play; they would prefer to take him off our hands when we get across to the mainland. Any questions? No? All right. We've got that son of a bitch where we want him."

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 30 Days)

* * *

"Ladies and gentlemen of the Council of Thorns. I am happy to announce that it is now open season on Sugou Nobuyuki. His actions concerning Laughing Coffin have been confirmed, alongside Tono Issei's known involvement." stated the holographic image in the Thorne Adjustment Group boardroom. The fact that the image looked a great deal like the deceased Kayaba did not make any of the thirteen members of the council nervous in the slightest. Indeed, of the beings present in the room, the real Kayaba would have had the lowest body count by far.

The two women on one of the loveseats looked to one another; the trim Japanese woman deferred in their statement to the elegant French blond. "Tono continues to defecate where he sleeps; our agent in his organization has found at least three breaches of the Covenant of Thorns in the past month alone. We suggest that he be removed posthaste, a recommendation that has the backing of the Oyabun."

The assassin called 'The Gatekeeper' was next. The dirty blond stated, "My agents have uncovered a new mobilization of the Japanese Red Army." She rolled her eyes, adding, "It would appear the Chinese want Sugou for their own purposes, beats having to pay for the training."

The rest of the reports followed in much the same way, varied degrees of success, failure, and one case of hilarity as one of the marks blew himself up before the assassin could get there to 'service' him.

Finally, the Thirteenth gave his report, starting with the unedited last fifteen minutes of Laughing Coffin's demise at the hands of a fifteen year old girl. "Ladies and gentlemen of the board, I present to you one Asada Shino, alias Sinon, alias Death Gun." Nods of appreciation and a few murmured comments on her effectiveness followed the viewing. "So, possible recruit, or possible target?"

The Thirteenth, a young-looking man of indeterminate nationality, never ever smiled. His face always stayed in the same impassive state. The other board members were shocked when the corners of his mouth twitched upward almost imperceptibly. "I intend to recruit her to the Covenant. She has the drive, the ability even at such a young age. The SRAIGear I had modified still isn't finding use, but it's good to know it's there; I want her alive."

"After all, she's my great-great-granddaughter, I have her right where I want her."

* * *

End Volume 1.


	14. Death Gun: The Armory 1

A while back, I kind of noticed how my early misadventures with the Punisher had affected some of my Zero Hour stuff. This, ladies and gentlemen? Is inspired by the Armory issues.

* * *

Death Gun: The Armory I

* * *

From the Digital Diary of Asada Shino.

* * *

Norinco Type 54 Pistol [Black Star Shooter]

{Pictured: A black semi-automatic pistol chambered in 7.62x25mm. The appearance is strictly utilitarian. Instead of the usual pistol safety switch, a safety catch is bolted in just above and forward of the trigger, appearing like it would be difficult to engage.}

"Ahh yes, this brings back memories, unfortunate ones. One of these was baby's first firearm, the one I used to end the psycho that tried to rob the postal office my mother and I were in at the time. Thinking back now, I should have known I would end up using these things more and more often."

"I did lie to [Xaxa] when I told him he had the clip in backwards; while the Type 54 may be a copy of the Tokarev, it has none of the poor design decisions made in the original test model, which had a clip that could be slid in backwards. No, our bigger next door neighbors made their own set of completely new, hilariously painful mistakes."

"The original slide is hell on the hands to pull into an open state. Since the receiver is stamped, it doesn't have the accuracy that a machined receiver has (which would trade off in durability, if they used better steel.) The safety catch, though, is the big one. With most pistols, it's a simple case of toggling a lever to safe your weapon, allowing safe travel with it. With the Type 54, though, you need to actually draw the slide open to lock it which has several things that can go painfully wrong with it, especially when you move the lever back into firing position (a poorly maintained Black Star can actually fire.) Finally, the cartridge is a bit on the puny side; it has neither the throw weight of the Parabellum, nor the speed of a Long 22, like the Ruger Target Pistol does."

"All of that being said, due to the fact so many of the darned things were smuggled to Japan for the use of our own merry crime org, the Yakuza, finding one is far easier here than, say, finding a Glock would be. Every crook and their neighbor seem to have them; four of the six attackers at the Cathedral were shooting them at me. Eh, quantity has its own quality, I guess. The rounds both bounced off my improvised armor."

* * *

Rock Island Arsenal M15 [General Officer's Pistol]

{Pictured: A large semi-automatic, brought to a very high standard of finish. Certain portions of the slide and frame are a deep blue steel; the top of the slide is matte black, and all other exposed metal is blued more lightly. The grips are select-grade walnut, with brass placards on the side that is showing, "General Moore." The slide itself is engraved with, "General Officer's Model" and "RIA".}

"Holy. Fucking. Shit."

"When I first began looking up my arms take against [Laughing Coffin], the first thing that came up when I began searching for what kind of weapon this is, was a 1911A1 .45cal ACP pistol. The only problem was, there was a lanyard on this pistol's spring housing that screwed up the result. Then I looked up the name on the plate on the grip. To say that my mind was blown, would be a massive understatement."

"I would love to know how [Black] managed to get his hands on this particular piece of art. They were only made for generals in the United States military forces, and only a thousand or so of them came off the assembly lines. I have no idea how to get this to where it belongs without getting made myself, but for damned sure I'm not using this thing again. Really, that's kind of a pity, though."

"The 1911 may be a century older in design than I am, but as far as putting a world of hurt on someone, few pistols are its equal. Oh, sure, the muzzle velocity ensures that you can likely waltz around the bullets, but anything that takes one of the .45 rounds from it... Well, it'll rip off an arm, blow massive holes through torsos, or as [Comedy] found out, do horrible, laughable things with the human skull. More useful, though, is the fact that you can fire round after round out of one, and if you don't overheat it, the 1911 will just keep firing."

"When I am done with Tono, this pistol is finding its way to a museum, come Hell or high water."

* * *

Glock 18C [Maschinenpistole]

{Pictured: A pair of matte-black semi-automatic pistols. The six magazines included are excessively long, and easily pack 30 rounds or more apiece. Attached flashlights are underneath each barrel. The frame, magazine, and several other parts appear to be made from some kind of plastic, and the steel surfaces have very minimal glare. Four smaller magazines are nearby.}

"It would appear [Wraith] was preparing to fight a small war. That's the only reason I could think that he or she (I really couldn't tell, and didn't take time to ask) would be carrying these two beauties."

"At first, it appeared that these were from the third generation of Glock 17s with oversized clips, before I noticed the safety switch (really a selector switch) had one more setting than I had expected. A quick look online told me I had a pair of its far nastier younger brother. Dropping the selector to the bottom enables firing in full auto."

"The only problem with firing in full auto is that the barrel climbs rapidly, something I was not ready for when I used them the first time on human vermin. Also, thirty three rounds of Parabellum are a bit much for normal semi-auto use. In order to hide their true nature, I managed to find some of the normal 17C magazines on E-Slay, and have used those to wonderful effect. Unless someone has a very keen eye, I'll be able to save those babies for when I hunt Tono down."

* * *

Israeli Military Industries [Desert Eagle] Mark XIX

{Pictured: An oversized hand cannon made for someone that is compensating for something.}

"Aaaaaaand now for something completely different. I picked this one up (with some difficulty) off the corpse of the one I know now to have been [Prophet], the one definitively female member of Laughing Coffin. She was the only one that actually managed to shoot somewhere near me with this honking huge handgun. If she had used two hands to fire, she might not have broken her wrist, and I might not be here right now."

"This one is chambered for the overpowered .50cal Action Express round. Seriously, if you get hit in the head or torso by one, turn in your Life card, because you're done. The only problem with that is, you need massive arms or both hands to fire one without injuring yourself. The nice thing about the Eagle is that you can rechamber it for something slightly more sane, such as the still pants-poopingly hard hitting .44 Magnum rounds. I personally will likely go instead for the .40 or .357, though, because if I'm still alive after ending Tono, I'd like a pair of working hands, thank you very much."

* * *

Improvised Class III Armor Vest

{Pictured: Left side, rolls of Kevlar 2" strap, Gorilla Glue, and a trauma plate, over Kevlar fabric. Right side: The mostly-completed [Death Gun] Combat Vest, showing Kevlar strap being wrapped around an already installed plate.}

"Well, my first idea to use Kevlar straps as improvised armor saved my heart from leaving my body as tartare, due to the Yakuza using ammo not quite up to the task. Rather painfully for me, though, I learned an important lesson from that: Fabric does not stop the kinetic action from getting through. Two very sore spots on my body, a bruise in the skin over my heart and a bruised rib, kept me from going out for my night job for three solid weeks while I healed up. That doesn't even count the bruising from binding myself up like that. Seriously, what was I thinking?"

"I found out the not-quite-as-hard way that armor is something that shouldn't be done on the fly. Instead, I found out where to get Kevlar cloth from. Since I was laid up for a while, why not let loose my inner seamstress? Hoo boy, I never seem to learn."

"A few weeks of glued thumbs, tangled hair, and Kevlar straps laughing at my pitiful attempts to cut them, I finally managed to get something together that looked like a vest. That's when the fun began. Making the pockets for trauma plates was a royal pain, but now they slide in and out on the fly, while remaining tight. A lesser bind lets me pass as a slightly more muscular male, but it is quite simply good enough, with enough layers of Kevlar that it should be good against a 9mm Submachine gun."

"Now let's just hope I never have to prove it."

* * *

Unknown [Full Dive] Gear

"I found this in Laughing Coffin's funhouse, it looks like a cross between the NERVGear and an AMUSphere. I have no idea what it belongs to, but even I'm not dumb enough to try it on for fun... Hey, this thing weighs about 3 pounds. This couldn't be like what got shipped to me, could it?"


	15. 2-1: Rebuild of Nanami

If I had simply left off on this in the first arc, kept the war up on Issei Tono's organization instead of detouring as it did, this fic might not have left street level for a while. Instead, I let myself be persuaded by a suggestion of a reader on Sufficient Velocity. The results of that decision are below. The end of this chapter seems to go better when you play One OK Rock's 'No Scared' with it; the fact that it's the theme music for Black Rock Shooter, whose heroine bears some resemblance to my take on Shirotaka Nanami, is completely coincidental.

* * *

Zero Hour: get RECT(Einz); Rebuild of Nanami

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 31 Days)

* * *

It was a day like any other for Asada Shino. Get up at four, train for two hours, get ready for school (Must keep up appearances). Take the train, kick the unfortunate Chikan trying to grope her someplace distinctly unpleasant, snicker as he hobbles off the train in pain (Ahh, the little joys in life). Walk to school, change into the inside shoes, keep up with the professor (Can not make oneself look too abnormal). Head to Go Club, get on the bus, head to another school for a tournament (All work and no play make Shino a dull girl).

She had been told what to expect; the students at this school were a little strange, especially after a significant percentage had disappeared in the ALO 'Incident'. Even so, though, she could tell who the students of this school were; one and all they looked like they had seen Hell, and in some small way fought their way out. The other students, the ones from other schools, showed none of the signs of having needed to fight in order to survive; Shino recognized the signs every day in the mirror.

One thing she had not expected was to see a ghost from her past, the lone known survivor of [Laughing Coffin]'s final Death Game. The girl looked almost carefree, only a subtle hint of pain crossing her face as she walked across to the left-hand building.

'Wait. Walked. WHAT?'

Her mind went back to that night, looking over the young, horrifically-maimed young woman, and then Shino's eyes tracked the black-haired girl carefully. Arms, legs, apparently the new prostheses were far better than the tech companies had advertised, the girl looked like any other here, save for the long jacket she wore everywhere. The other thing Shino noticed as she prepared to walk into the right-hand building with her Go Club were the pair of blue glasses? Visor? The girl was wearing something like that, something like that ANUsphere thingy...

* * *

It was a far better day for Shirotaka Nanami, far better than the ones before. Get up at six, wiggle into her harness, activate the prostheses with her AMUSphere (Still inefficient, she wished now that she hadn't melted her NERVGear.). Stand up and move about, slide the other two batteries in, check the charge (It wouldn't do to stop moving halfway through the day). Go to school, change into her inside shoes, try not to be bored with the professor (School held her back so much, just like it had for Akira). Listen to the whispers from the other students, smile at vapid teenagers who called her the Iron Maiden knowingly, give zero fucks (That which does not kill you only makes you stronger).

As class ended for the day, Nanami stretched like a satisfied cat, not caring what others might have thought. Even simple things like basic human motion had become a new joy to her after the second Death Game, and she stubbornly refused to let Laughing Coffin win. As she got up to head to the Robotics club room in the left school building, she looked out the window to see buses coming in, some game tournament was using the right building. She had to stifle a laugh at the thought of it, at least none of them would ever have to deal with the Game.

As she made her way out of the building, Nanami spotted what had to have been a ghost. Someone who looked so very much like her very own guardian devil stepped off a bus, not joining in the conversation her fellows from that school. It couldn't be her, though, just someone with a remarkably similar appearance; the glasses spoiled it, and the doppelganger's eyes were the wrong color. Slightly shaken, Nanami turned for Building #2, and missed Shino spotting her in turn.

Walking into the club room, she smiled sweetly. Her fellow partners in crime had already gotten everything ready, the set of gear they had built from the ground up for the contest (that some obnoxious tool of a CEO was holding) in pristine condition, merely waiting for her to slide into the more permanent harness.

It had taken a little bit of digging around, but Nanami and her crew had managed to figure out how to acquire the materials for this jump forward. Her contact with the government already had everything they needed for the new limbs: Honeycombed titanium tubing, spun graphite, ballistic grade ceramics for industrial robotics, Kevlar, woven Myomer bundles, memory metals, magneto-induction piping, and ferroconductive fluid, all waste materials from one of Kikouka's other projects, had found their way into the new (slightly thinner) limbs; the reinforced harness would protect her from the additional force and heat that the cyberlimbs would provide.

"Link start!" said Shirotaka Nanami, activating the extra pairs of virtual hands she used to code in multiple shells, all the last second tasks needed to ensure things worked just as planned.

* * *

It was a shitty day for Sugou Nobuyuki. He was stuck here, the high school that acted as a reminder of his failure to bring his bride-to-be to heel, judging what was likely to be a lame technology fair with stuff made by students that had missed two years of school. It was necessary to keep up the facade he had built up for the past three months, one he could drop the instant he flew to the Dominican Repuplic to join the rest of his operation. Soon, he would be able to leave brats like this behind, raking in the cash left, right, and center from anyone that wanted the best military training, the most escape-proof prisons.

He looked over the list of competitors, looked over all the buses there, and noted there were more teenagers at the school than what the fair would support. It must have been that more than one event was going on at the same time; he would need to keep to his schedule, and in the center building specifically.

Sugou looked over the projects that he was going to be judging, shaking his head. "Kiddy Grade all the way with this. Fluid Motion Generator? I hope it doesn't spew on my suit. Three robotics demonstrations? No doubt the students have a bunch of those stupid Dancing Dendroids."

Sighing as he was driven up to the entrance to that building, Sugou sighed in exasperation. "This is going to be as boring as hell. Oh, please, give me something to liven the day up!"

* * *

It was going to be a glorious day for the Revolutionary Movement of the Free Democratic Peoples' Republic of Japan (better known to people that have a life as the Red Japanese Army terrorist group). Today they were going to strike the first blow in taking Japan away from the Capitalist Pigs and give it back to the proletariat. Few of those in the BRDMs and that were making its way to the SAO Returnee School thought on the failures of most of the world's socialist regimes over the past century. Such thoughts were for those who knew fear (who were really sane, sanity is for the weak).

It might have been a problem taking the APCs through the streets; the police would caught on near the docks they would be offloading from, but for an inspired deception from the one they called the Heartbreaker, Ikari Nanbou. Despite that twisted man's sickness of the soul (or perhaps because of it), he had a mind perfectly capable of using the country's own media infatuation to grant them passage to their target.

It took little time to get the licenses needed for a filming permit to bring three 'Genuine Imitation' BRDMs and nine BTRs through the city from the docks. The guns on the BRDMs were replaced with minigun 'mockups', while the BTRs got actual mockups; the explanation given was that it wouldn't be believable for guns to look as akin to a certain piece of anatomy as the originals, another twisted inspiration of Nanbou's.

A wrong turn here, an 'accidentally' ditched police escort there, and the deception would pay off in spades. They would be able to get in, grab or gut Sugou, plant the charges to remove as many sacrifices for the cause (see also: witnesses) as possible, and get out, only needing to run fifteen kilometers to get to their exit point in the swamps they could go through to get to their exit ship.

Their commander smiled as they made their turn; Nanbou's brass-balled approach had been too unbelievable to him, but like clockwork, they had pulled it off. His smile lasted just as long as it took for him to spot all the buses in the way; those had not been planned for. "Punch a hole through them!" he ordered over the terrorists' radios; the police had already begun to make inquiries, but it would be far too late for them to respond if they could just punch through to the buildings...

* * *

Asada Shino was losing badly to her opponent from one of the other schools when she heard a loud 'CRUNCH' outside. Tilting her head like so many other students, she viewed an APC headed for the window. "You have got to be fucking kidding me!" She turned the table she had been playing on sideways, yanking her opponent behind the table as safety glass flew everywhere.

* * *

In the center building, Sugou Nobuyuki jumped as he felt the building shudder at his feet. Thinking it was an earthquake at first, his assistant grabbed him, trying to get him moving out the nearest exit, the front door. As they entered the foyer, though, Sugou and his assistant (and those students that had followed them mistakenly thinking the adults knew what they were doing) found several AKMS copies with painted-on orange tips pointed in their general direction.

* * *

In the left building, Shirotaka Nanami felt the building underneath her wiggle a little bit, and her eyes quickly went back and forth as she sat, waiting for her harness to finish warming up. That was before the students in the room heard the muffled sound of a single gun shot care of a trigger-happy nutjob. 'Well. Here we go again...' thought she, watching her clubmates go very, very silent.

{Iron Walkyure Interface System - Warming Up}

Screams were heard from frightened students near the entrance; two more shots were fired before the noise stopped. The sounds of doors being smashed in reverberated down the halls as breaching shells sundered their locks.

}Disengage ALL Safeties{ typed Nanami through one of her virtual vectors, the false hands allowing her to program so much faster now that danger approached, real danger like SAO, real danger like Laughing Coffin. Not now. Please not now.

The sounds kept getting closer, the light sounds of shuffling feet could be heard as students were pulled from the rooms they were in. Bless their hearts, she saw her clubmates picking up tools, holding them like they might have in SAO. It was going to get them killed, but she was so incredibly touched at the sight of others putting their lives on the line for her.

{WARNING – No Pulse Detected} her heavily modified AMUSphere blazed, and as she noticed, her vision blurred as her body's bloodflow ceased. No. NO! She would not let it end like this; her vectors redoubled in speed, exponentially increased in speed, as she hacked. Code and thought became one.

}Kickstart My Heart{ thought she, the program hack taking the telemetry off the computer her processors were attached to, and she felt blood pump through her veins, felt the ferroconductive lubricant pulse into her false limbs as if they belonged to her natural body, felt her heart and the Fluid Metal Accelerator beat as one.

The lock burst as a shell was pumped into it, the door took a few seconds for the terrorists to beat in, thanks to the quick thinking of little Nishizuma Kyuzi 'Roberto' wedging a piece of scrap metal in the way. The men swept in, one of them slapping a girl down with the butt of his rifle, before turning the gun downward. "Out! Now!"

{Neural Express Reaction Validation Online} came the next datasquirt from her AMUSphere, and the world about her suddenly sung with noise, the light seemed brighter as her pupils dilated. Her eyes looked at everything so very rapidly, the feedback from the AMUSphere manifesting before dialing itself back. Time seemed to slow so very much for Nanami, her adrenals interacting with her nervous system in a way she had not felt since the day SAO was cleared.

One of the terrorists turned on 'Roberto', the slide on his gun racking back as the boy just barely a teenager stood his ground to protect her.

{Reactive Activity Overdrive: Warning, This May Cause Physical Damage, Continue?}

}Hell Yes{

A blue light seemed to erupt from Nanami's left eye as the neural receptors in the AMUSphere handed over full control of her body, both biological and mechanical. That feeling, every fiber of her being, metal and flesh as one, would be something she would remember for the rest of time.

One moment, Shirotaka Nanami was in a cradle used to keep her safe while her team was working.

The next split second, she was in front of the man who had been threatening 'Roberto' with his AKMS. One hand had gripped the terrorist's, yanking the weapon underneath up and to the side. As she simply SQUEEZED, a grotesque 'POPSNAPCRUNCHSQUELCH!' sound escaped as a half-ton of pounds per square inch were applied, reducing the man's hand and wrist to the consistency of bloody sausage.

Nanami whispered out in a still small voice, "Never again."


	16. 2-2: Laser Guided Karma

And it's time for the Adventures of Shino and Nanami... Oh wait, it's Zero Hour time! More bullets! Raining blood! Morons picking the worst possible school in the country to invade!

I would like to thank Alane1 for the idea for one part, the Kim Possible fanfic writer SHADO Commander for an idea I borroed, and Ghost In The Shell and Evangellion for Rebuild of Nanami!

So, without any further ado, the continuation of...

* * *

Zero Hour: get RECT(zwei); Laser Guided Karma

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 31 Days: April 22nd, 2025, Building #3)

Silence descended upon the area the terrorists had the students and staff brought together in Building #3, the right hand building of the SAO Returnees School campus. The BRDM had been pulled out of the hole it had made in the wall, so that the Red Army soldiers could enter easily. It had been easy, too easy to enter like this, almost as if no one cared about the security of the children here.

The soldiers quickly went to work, each room cleared like clockwork, each objective reached and completed, each little detail taken care of as if it were their normal daily jobs. Children were herded in, adults were separated and then silenced as the need came about, and the building was prepared for their inevitable departure, the demo man in each squad placing their charges quickly, quietly on each of the support pillars.

After the first 'demonstration' of what would happen to unruly children, the students kept silent as the grave, moreso those who had come from other schools for the tournament. Jackets were taken off, cellphones collected in order to keep the police ignorant of what was going on inside. Several of the students had noticed the blocks of gray-looking clay; none seemed to understand what the presence of that much Composition 4 entailed for them. A few of them perked up when one of the 'soldiers' mentioned thermobaric grenades, but turned so as not to catch the attention of their captors.

The terrorist commander had reasoned that if there were too many inputs to be serviced, that their escape would be so much easier. Three buildings that rescue personnel would need to dig through for potential survivors would rein in a fair number of police alongside the normal rescue and fire services, while the killing of the people in the schools would remove witnesses to their atrocity-in-progress. For those police (and maybe SWAT) that got in their way, the BRDMs had been equipped with modified rotary cannon in 12.7mm. Combined with the magnesium-tipped thermite incendiary tracers and tungsten carbide AP rounds in the loadout for the miniguns, it should have reliably penetrated an APC at 500 meters, let alone any more mundane police vehicles in their way.

The man with the detonation 'board', really a tablet with an overboosted bluetooth adapter, smiled wickedly. Ikari Nanbou, known to police as the serial pedophile 'The Heartbreaker', was looking over his captive audience; there had to be just the right girl for him here to entertain him for some time before they started getting back on their BDRs and leaving with an explosive surprise in their wake.

Then the screaming started bursting forth from the radio. A squishing sound was followed by three meaty thuds over the terrorists' earbuds as the head of Platoon 2, Squad 3, Section 1 was introduced to the first unpleasant surprise the school had for the Japanese Red Army. That screaming intensified shortly thereafter as his fellows in that section were given a preview of the fate of the combined invasion force.

"Frequency two, frequency two!" screamed Ikari, changing the channel on his radio himself, catching the story from the Commander himself: There was resistance in Building #2. An entire section had gone off-radio, presumed disabled or dead.

The Heartbreaker sighed, nothing ever went quite as planned with this kind of operation. Things were going perfectly in this building, though, so many students from other schools left no room for resistance from the children, and the adults had been dealt with already. He had time for his fun.

Looking over the girls, he immediately tuned out to those that had reached a certain age, they held no appeal to him. Cute and moe were his desire, and as he looked to the right, he saw just what he was looking for, an adorable brunette with two locks of hair tied with white bows wearing glasses, just the sort of plaything he enjoyed breaking the heart of. "Hey you. Yes you, miss. You're coming with me."

* * *

(Building #2)

The first soldier Shirotaka Nanami had assaulted had suffered multiple catastrophic open fractures of the right hand and wrist, complicated by compartment syndrome (meaning that fluid flow had been disrupted, a serious condition). In short, when she had crushed the hand of the squad leader, she had crushed the squad leader's hand with all the force, all the power of the industrial-strength machine she had become. It would be the most survivable of his four injuries.

Nanami's first punch took the sergeant in the stomach, the force akin to having a wrecking ball slam into one's belly. It was something technically treatable with prompt transport to an emergency room. Her second struck him higher up, in the ribcage. He would have needed to already be in the hospital to have survived that, as the vertical thrust punch caused all of the ribs on one side to audibly crack through an armored vest.

Her third punch, an uppercut to his jaw, was instantly fatal, striking with all the force and fury one might expect of a small car slamming into a building. Meanwhile, one tenth of a second from her first punch landing, her other hand dropped the now useless limb she had been holding onto, instead gripping the corpse's vest so that she might use his body as a meat shield from his comrades.

The fifteen year old girl charged the distance between herself and victim number two in another tenth of a second, whereupon the first victim of what would become known as NIMPFS* found out what it would be like to sing castrati. Her second kick swept him off of his feet as his kneecaps suddenly went sideways in the same manner someone getting hit there by a powerized baseball bat might. The shock knocked him unconscious at that point, meaning he would survive the afternoon.

The other two men in the command section of that squad had finally begun to turn their weapons by that point, two fifths of a second after Nanami had spoken after getting up. The weapons turning slowly (by Nanami's adrenaline and AMUSphere-enhanced thinking) simply served to bring the two of them to her full attention.

Her third target did not expect her to duck in low, and as such, his shots only struck the corpse of his sergeant before Nanami let him go. He then heard a -POP!- and then felt shooting agony from his left ankle, which she had grabbed and squeezed before picking him up by the other ankle.

The last victim of Shirotaka Nanami's initial assault did not know what to make of a teenager that could casually swing a man that must have been at least twice again her weight like he was a plastic pipe, one that had bones and flesh. As such, when the girl spun, he did not think, stunned as she used her current captive in much the same manner as a human baseball bat. He did think to go limp as he hit the wall, which saved his life for a little longer as Nanami dropped her second piece of human equipment before casually stomping on her third attacker's neck with a loud SNAP!

The last conscious terrorist made one last fatal mistake, begging for his life to a girl who he would have shot dead five seconds before. "You bastards... You dare come to MY school... You mess with MY fellow SAOvivors... and you have the TEMERITY to beg me for your life?" heard the unfortunate viewer of his own personal Mook Horror Show, as Nanami slowly stalked forward, causing him to tremble in horrified fear.

His right hand found the grip of his squad's grenade launcher, and feeling some hope, he spun quickly, only for his doom to have closed the five meters in what seemed like an instant. The revolver-type launcher was casually pulled from his hands and tossed to a student lightly, before she picked the man up by his vest collar and bottom, and lifted him into the air with the same apparent effort it would take most people to lift a TV tray.

He only had a brief moment to scream before Nanami brought him down onto her knee back-first, folding his body at a singularly unnatural angle. "Wow. That never happened at any of those wrestling shows my brother used to like to watch. I guess it really is all fake." She turned to the mildly shocked members of the rest of her design crew, sighing as she thought how the work of five seconds must have looked to them.

Pausing to think of the right way to word it, she said instead, "All right guys. Some of you, like Roberto, knew me in SAO; the rest of you I met here..." She choked up for a bit, looking at the human wreckage she had left behind. "These bastards wanted our lives, just like Kayaba, just like Laughing Coffin. You would have died trying to protect me, and I couldn't let that happen. I meant it when I said 'Never Again'. Just like _THERE_ , I'll be more than happy to protect you all."

* * *

(Building #3)

Ikari Nanbou had been building up to this all day; all the mayhem the Communist terrorist group caused was simply an excuse for him, so that he would have the chance to do THAT here, in the middle of a school. As he looked down at the cute little thing before him, he smiled as he took off his vest, and then his shirt, leering at his prize. "Are you afraid, little girl?" sneered he as he looked down to her frozen, terrified face.

He took a few moments to drink it all in, before the moment came upon him. Finally, he licked his lips, and as he began to grab for her shirt, she froze. Perfect. His hands came to rest on the buttons above her chest, which was heaving, panting in terror. He reached in, and ripped, and everything changed in an instant.

Instead of getting a view of her heaving busom, with the girl's shirt ripped open, he saw instead a covering of bone-colored straps up and down her torso, as if she were bandaged like a burn patient. Asada Shino's face, which had seemed fearful before, twisted into a wide, terrifying grin that The Heartbreaker knew only too well from that time in the room of mirrors, one not far from his own; she was about to take her pleasure from him. He looked her form over more carefully, and then he knew. He saw the pair of knife handles, wrapped in cord of the same color as the straps that comprised her true covering, even as the shirt he was holding onto kept him from seeing her arms in motion.

His lungs began to draw in breath for a shout he thought himself unlikely to get out, his hands releasing her shirt too late as her hands gripped the knife handles. As the black blades came free of the sheathes, he found himself wondering why she had put them in the sheath back-end around, until they slipped into his arms just that way, the Karambits digging in like talons along the length of his quickly, painfully, until they slid out just shy of the elbows, rendering his arms useless and bleeding like a seive. As his killer's arms continued along their path, The Heartbreaker could do nothing to stop Sinon from slicing through his throat with an absolute minimum of effort.

It was just his shitty luck. He had seen those straps before, watching the video of those gangsters getting ended. Somehow, Fate had decided to guide Sinon right into his path, and as The Heartbreaker's mind kept working, his body suffered further assault, his killer spinning and ducking, slicing cleanly through the tendons in his knees, removing his last desperate avenue of defense. As he fell onto his back, his arms flailed uselessly even as Sinon jumped up on his stomach, straddling him even as she reversed her grip on the Karambits.

Shino jammed the talon-shaped knives between the man's ribs right where the Sayaret Matkal manual had called the 'sweet spot'. It had the desired effect, silencing any wheezing the man might have done, removing his last chance to raise an alarm. Ripping the knives free, she wiped them on his chest, before gently laying down atop him and whispering into his ear, "So, tell me this... Was it as good for you as it was for me?"

As he lay dying, Ikari Nanbou wanted to laugh, so very much; he could appreciate the irony of his masterwork of deception leading to his end at the hands of a greater student of the art, for as he died, he thought to himself, "Sinon, that lauded slayer of slayers, is a girl. The commander did warn me."

Sinon did not take too much time to enjoy her work, simply rolling off before inventorying the contents of the man's vest. When she pulled the tablet out, she turned it on, bringing up the detonation program. 'SHIT! I thought that was what that gray stuff was. Okay, time to think fast. AKMS... Too heavy to be a 74, it's got the larger caliber. An underslung 43mm grenade launcher? Really? Machete? Hrm... I think I can find a use for it. Bullet resistant vest, that's definitely getting used, I need to hide my boobs somehow, and that means I need his pants too. Well, this is no time to be squeamish. These can't be soapdish charges. 'Point This Side Towards Enemy', and they're numbered too. Oh sweet merciful Murder Santa, you are the best.'

As she looked over the rest of his gear, the electronics, the earbuds, Shino could only smile as she yanked the ribbons out of her hair, she had been wondering if she should wear the scarf today. 'I'll need to hit and run, I can't allow myself to get dragged into any long-term battles.' Slipping a finger on the built-in voice distorter to turn it on, she wrapped it around her head, giving herself at least something close to a disguise. "Oh god. What the fuck is wrong with me that I'm enjoying this like it's Christmas?"

* * *

*Nanami Induced Multiple Pelvic Fracture Syndrome (AKA kicked in the groin hard enough to break bones)  
-


	17. 2-3: Nanami Get Your Gun

Zero Hour: get Rect(Drei); Nanami Get Your Gun

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 31 Days: April 22nd, 2025, Building #2)

The miss-aimed gunfire would have brought the attention of the other members of the Japanese Red Army, but it was the screaming, the horrible, horrible screaming as three lives were ended that demanded the attention of the two nearby sections, the other six men in that squad. They ran, guns drawn in preparation for the battle they had been expecting, perhaps some of the adults in the building were military. Heading in from two different directions, they would cut off their opposition before hunting it down, they mistakenly believed.

Platoon 2, Squad 2, Section 3 were simply unready to face what they found, a single teenaged girl standing eight meters in front of them as they rounded the corner. Both hands held machetes, perfect duplicates to the ones all the soldiers carried to threaten the students (and massacre the adults). They believed themselves superior in every way, after all, they had the guns, all this girl had were a pair of over-length knives. "Drop the machetes and get on the floor, or you die!" said the corporal leading them; it would prove to be the section's fatal mistake, as Shirotaka Nanami had not noticed them at that point.

The anguished terror that carried down the hall reached the ears of Section 2 less than a second later, and they picked up the pace, calling for their comrades over the radio as they did so, only hearing the pitiful whimpers of one for a brief moment over their earbuds before it was cut off by a short, sharp 'SCHLAK!'. Their increased speed meant they never noticed Roberto and the other four members of Nanami's nakama hiding behind door number 3. When his steps made noise twelve meters after they had passed, the remainder of Squad 2 tried turning, but they were far too late as their reception in 43mm Thermobaric didn't care at all about their body armor, the three meters around them instantly incinerated by the single grenade Roberto fired.

The moment after that, Roberto was hucking up his lunch, nauseated by the fact that he had just killed.

When Nanami rounded the corner, the students all saw the blood splatter on her and the machetes they had liberated from her first victims; she had used knives before in SAO, and these were close enough to feel familiar, to feel right. If she still had her limbs, still could move without the IWIS System, then she would not have had the strength or speed she had in game, Nanami would have been torn apart. "I got the rest of them. Grab their gear and let's go." She pointed at her radio, adding with an enraged note, "They said we just wiped one squad, they're talking about 'using up' hostages."

* * *

(Building #3)

Platoon 3, Squad 1 were searching for their commander. When Ikari Nanbou had taken a young 'volunteer' with him to pass the time, he had also taken the demolitions board with him, not expecting to be gone too long, easily within the 2-hour envelope that they had been expecting to be there before leaving. After the removal of an entire squad over a three minute period in the left building, the Red Captain had told them to find their boss, and drag him away if necessary. The thought of interrupting _that_ made most of them more than a little queasy.

That was before they heard the wet 'kathunk kathunk kathunk' coming down the stairs. The squad took up firing positions, waiting for whatever was coming down the stairwell. Whatever it was bounced off the opposite wall, and then rolled down the stairs like a grotesque bowling ball. The head of their platoon's leader continued rolling down the stairs, before finally coming to rest on the ground in front of their positions. Listening for it, a raspy baritone voice called out from the second floor, "I'm up here, you horses' asses!"

"Bloody hell..." one corporal mouthed, before the squad's leader ordered one section up the stairs. "One-Six, this is Two-One-Six. We found Nanbou... Or at least part of him." As the sergeant (now promoted to platoon leader by the demise of their lieutenant) gave the details to the force commander, one of the soldiers went over to the head, he had noticed something a bit off. Picking up the head, he commented, "Alas poor Heartbreaker, I wish I didn't know you so well." That elicited snickers from the seven men still on the first floor, none of them had any feelings of loss about the violent end of their CO. That mirth lasted just long enough for the head-holding terrorist's eyes to widen.

Just as the section climbing the stairs were set to crest them, a loud but strangely resigned, "Oh, FUCK!" escaped the lips of one man. He had enough time to read what he mistakenly thought was a black plastic card in Ikari Nanbou's mouth. It read in English, 'This Side Towards Enemy.' The warning, if it could have been called that, was just in time for one of the men on the stairs to trip a thin length of nylon line stretched a foot above the top step.

Two explosions, one by claymore trigger and the other by the detonation board remote, caused a smile to come to the scarf-hidden lips of [Sinon], who had run rapidly away from the stairs the instant the bait had been heard, two of the Heartbreaker's soapdish charges having killed or crippled one third of the forces in the second building. She had seen something like this in a movie once, and she snickered as she thought, 'I guess movies really do cause violence.'

Her slung AKMS in hand, she picked her way down the ruined steps carefully, jumping the last few steps to make it to the landing, before slowly descending the second, less damaged half of the stairwell.

Upon landing, Sinon decided it was time to introduce herself properly. "You false killers, now know the taste of real strength, real power! Foolish men, engrave the fear of this name in your heart!" spoke the altered voice, one that had been heard on that too-brief video of the doom of six wannabe hitmen, a voice she hoped would cause pants-ruining terror. Two rounds into still-moving bodies later, Asada Shino continued on her way back to the foyer, making sure to keep her eyes open for other targets. The radio's noise bled off, the enemy commander sure of the demise of at least one squad in each outer building, listening on to the infamous voice. "This gun and I are one and the same, our name, [Death Gun!]"

* * *

(Building #1)

"SHIT!" came the somewhat annoyed exclamation from the captain of the invasion force of the Free Democratic Peoples' Republic of Japan, his frustration and hate suddenly heating up to boiling hot. As he turned, he looked upon Sugou Nobuyuki, and said, "No doubt these are friends of yours, come to rescue you from being useful to the proletariat of the world?" Considering that he was gagged, it was not like the businessman could actually respond, though it looked almost like he wanted to laugh in his captor's face.

The captain visibly shook with rage before taking the microphone to the intercom system in the school. "Surrender now to the soldier nearest you, and we will ensure your death will be as painless as possible. Otherwise, every five minutes, another ten students die because you resisted the future."

The response came over the radio from the second building. "You're planning on killing all of them anyway, what's an earlier time of death? The bombs you tried to rig would end their lives soon enough." Shino paused, trying to come up with an inventive insult, finally adding, "Go gargle with razor blades."

The sound of police cars from outside were what came next, and the captain closed his eyes. At least one thing had gone right, they were going to get the publicity this little assault needed.

* * *

(Building #3)

Hearing that the school would be blown up spurred Nanami and her group forward, though they were careful enough to look for traps and ambushes, just like in SAO. Unlike SAO, death did not wait around every corner; the hard leather boots the terrorists were wearing gave them plenty of warning of what was coming. Instead, they had moved around the attackers in force, closing rapidly on the foyer of the building, where their fellow students were being held.

Six men were guarding the students, while the one vehicle that had rammed through the front door was just now being freed from the building through the inventive use of thick chain and a come-along. Nanami looked at the foyer using a mirror carefully, and then smiled, talking things over with her growing group. Two other rooms of students from the returnee school had joined up, the SAO Reclamation Army tripling in size over the space of a few minutes. The news that the criminals in the school planned on killing them all had focused the fear of those students in more useful directions.

They moved into position slowly, silently, some few of the things they had picked up in SAO now paying off in spades for the 'Young Counter-Revolutionaries'. In five minutes' time they had arranged everything so perfectly, nothing could fail.

So as a natural consequence of that fact, it did fail. Someone had spotted one of their number using the turret cameras, and shouted out a warning to his comrades at the last moment.

One moment, it was silent as a tomb in the room. The next, bedlam had erupted, the students forced to act before their would-be murderers could get the chance.

The deafening sound of gunfire took over as the RPK two students were lugging about roared into action, cutting across (and through) two of the soldiers that had been holding the students. One terrorist, faster on the ball than his fellows, fired off three bullets from his gun, clipping one of the children in the shoulder, but more importantly striking the other child with the RPK squarely in the chest, striking him dead.

Nanami would have moved in that direction, but at that moment, the sound of an engine starting and a turret slowly rotating could be heard, and she had to trust her friends to cover her as she moved to at least slow the BRDM's crew down. She needn't have worried, though, as the captive students rose up as one enraged organism, burying their assailants in bodies, the rush of students pulling down three more of the now-terrified soldiers.

The last unfortunate soldier swung his gun about, only for a teenaged girl to slide behind him, a tightly wound section of wire wrapping about the man's throat. As she squeezed on the improvised garrote, the soldier began to black out quickly, he tried to fire, only for his gun to be ripped out of his hands by one of the other students. A swift swing of the Saiga's butt into the terrorist's groin caused him to fall to his knees, then on his face as he lost consciousness.

The gunner had almost forced the turret into the direction of the students, but before he could spin the gatling up, Nanami simply jumped up. Landing atop the nose of the vehicle, she jammed one of her machetes into the seal on the entrance hatch, and was rewarded with the feel of sundered metal, as the oversized combat knife broke off inside the vehicle, giving her the leverage she needed to rip it open.

"Hi, boys!" jested she, just before the RGD-5 hand grenade she had been carrying entered the vehicle and bounced around. Rolling off, Nanami dived behind the wall to one side of the vehicle, not knowing how far the thing might blow up. A second later, as the minigun was beginning to spin up, a muffled 'Boomf...' erupted from the one open hatch, showering those unfortunate enough to be in the way with deflected shrapnel even as the turret ring popped up, and the turret tumbled onto the ground below.

She might not have been the gun nut Asada Shino was rapidly evolving into, but before her was the tool that had come so close to killing hundreds of students, from her school and otherwise. Ripping the casing off of the turret, Shirotaka Nanami sheared off the restraining bolts holding the Yak-B in place, before lifting the gun out. She was surprised, it was really so small compared to how it looked when she had been staring down the barrels. She hefted it, it felt so lightweight as she swung it about, before looking at the exposed cable plug. 'A USB?' thought she, plugging it in to the serial bus she had attached to her notepad.

As the gun's attached electronics spooled up, so many options revealed themselves to Nanami's enhanced reality. Engine startup, rotation speed, burst firing limit, one and all came easily to her; whoever had programmed the computer mated to this piece of Soviet-era murder machinery had done well. Ammo count (750), recoil adjustments, an inbuilt camera? Nanami looked through the camera, where the gun would fire if she pulled its digital trigger with her mind.

Ripping some blackened iron chain out of the destroyed BRDM, Nanami gripped the locking rods on the gun, essentially upending it and carrying it upside-down. Quickly wrapping the chain around the mounting block, she pulled it tight to her arm, smiling sweetly as she worked, making her enemy's weaponry her own.

As the remaining members of the third platoon rounded the exit to the foyer, they were greeted by teenagers and children with guns. At their head was a cute teen, barely fifteen, who was giving them a come hither gesture with one hand. In the other was the four-barreled 12.7mm spinning impossibility, casually pointed in the terrorists' general direction. Shirotaka Nanami grinned evilly and said, "Bang."


	18. 2-A: SOLDIER

Zero Hour: get Rect(Drei und Demi); SOLDIER

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 31 Days (April 22nd, 2025, Building #1)

As the Captain in the JDSF observed what was going on near building three, Sasuke could only look on, eyes wide open as he observed a girl that had to be a decade his junior rip a BRDM's hatch open with her bare hands before throwing one of the grenades the terrorists had been armed with in. The incredulity of the situation only got worse when he saw her rip out the minigun that had been arming the light reconnaissance vehicle in one piece, wrap it to her arm with heavy iron chain, and then casually test swing the mass of steel. "Oh sweet merciful... Just what do they feed the students here?" murmured he into the microphone attached to his cellphone.

It should have been just another normal day for Sasuke as he walked through the SAO Returnee School, just another day as a recruiter for the JSDF. When he had time to think about the situation most of these children and teenagers were in, the officer found himself disgusted with his countrymen for their treatment of the victims of Kayaba's death game, inducing the underage victims to go to a school that was as much mental asylum as it was a learning environment.

Their experiences had also made for a target rich recruiting ground; those who ventured out of the Village of Beginnings had to fight their way through the game for two years before being freed, inducing an almost military mindset in a good many of them. With the continuing tension over the Senkaku Islands (something he had taken part of), the Captain knew that the next generation of soldiers could not be like his was, almost complacent to the threat of their larger neighbor. That made these students, a number of whom had already needed to take a life, an unexpected resource.

When the [Torikujo]* in the JSDF ground forces heard the crunch of BRDM into bus, he had been walking around the gym facilities after trying to recruit one of the SAOvivors who would be reaching the age of majority very shortly. Holding a hand up to stop the students he was near, the sound of so many all terrain tires hit his ears just prior to the slamming of metal on glass. Sliding between the student and the first building, the Torikujo's easy seeming vanished, the command tone he used with his company flowing forth with practiced ease. "Get off the school grounds, and call Emergency. Do it! Now!" said he, pointing toward the rear fire exit.

This had not been the first time Sasuke had been in this situation. No, the first time he had been sent on a mission, he had been wet behind the ears and fresh from the pilot training course, newly minted wings marking him as an AH-64 pilot with an offer for OCS. That was just before the sinking of a Japanese fishing trawler in 'disputed' waters that the PLA had somehow tried to call an intelligence vessel. The politicians on both sides did what they are wont to do under normal circumstances, and blundered into a brief shooting conflict.

The commander of the helicopter platoon he had been in near the Senkakus was the first one hit by the unexpected wave of flak that had come up from the Chinese-flagged freighters nearby. His Apache had escaped the barrage only through sheer luck, though when he had seen the jets closing in on radar Sasuke had believed his goose was well and truly cooked. That he had survived the battle amazed him, that he had somehow made a gun kill on a jet whos pilot had been caught napping earned him a reprimand for foolish flying, the right to paint the silhouette of a J-11B superiority fighter on the nose of his Apache, and as one of three Japanese pilots to make air-to-air kills in that battle, the fast track to an unintended combat promotion.

He received the rank of Captain, and was also given something new to pilot: One brand new regulation desk, to keep him safe from the shooting as a morale device. Sasuke had ended up in recruitment for his next billet, his superiors hoping that a live 'hero' would help in that effort after the aftermath of engagement with the Chinese.

Now, with the Senkakus in UN hands to try to keep the conflict from breaking into a full-out war (Effective peacekeeping record of the UN: 4-16-3), Chinese and Japanese politicians had been trying to hack out a peace agreement (Likelihood of that happening: Better than the UN's chances). It also saw Sasuke transferred to a different, safer kind of helicopter, one he would fly VIPs around in while traveling, certainly a far better way to get to where his superior officers wanted him.

That had led him to cross paths with Lt. Col. Kikouka Seijirou, and by extension, the Ocean Turtle.

Kikouka had wanted him to recruit from the SAO Returnees' School, a move that at once seemed a bit sick and efficient. Sasuke had been there twice before; this time, Kikouka had asked him to stay behind for the science fair, guaranteeing an interesting surprise for him.

'Some surprise,' thought the Torikujo, 'Some days I wonder if that man's head is screwed on or screwed up.' He had been hiding from the Reds, Sasuke knew who they were by their uniforms and equipment, even if he wasn't much of a groundpounder.

Oh, the one that he disabled when the unfortunate man was answering nature's call might have said otherwise, but getting a choke hold on a man in front of the urinal was simply an opportunity he couldn't pass up. One stolen radio later, and he was able to listen in on the terrorists as they took the three buildings and the students therein.

Most of the radio traffic coming in seemed to imply that everything was in hand for the Reds; Sasuke had connected his phone to the radio, sending the feed in the clear to the emergency responder line. Rooms hostages were in, where they were taking certain groups of hostages, and where they were disposing of adults, all of that information came over loud and clear, leaving Sasuke with an empty feeling; all he had was an AK he kind of knew how to use.

Then the Tactical Nanami struck Building #3.

One moment, the communists believed themselves in utter control of the situation, five hundred plus lives ready for sundering for their cause. The next, 158cm of devastation ran through one of what the Reds called sections like Sasuke's father through mochi, there one second, gone the next, save for the screaming.

A little more than a minute later, he heard about the unmourned demise of Ikari Nanbou. Suppressing a snicker, the news alleviated some of the feeling of uselessness in the pit of his stomach. The explosions shocked him as he saw one of the series of windows blow outward, the death knell of one third of the 'soldiers' striking there.

That little fact did nothing to calm the ice he felt slide in his veins when he heard Death Gun announcing himself to the world at large. That killer of killers, here in the returnee school? Thinking on it, Sasuke worked it out in his head logically. After all, SAO had more than one player killer in it, no doubt someone had gotten a taste for something horribly bad for them in that virtual hell.

A loud WHUCK! in the next room got his attention, had he somehow walked near the kill room? The Torikujo's eyes narrowed, if two students could fight off terrorists, then so could he. Locking the AK into firing position, he slid next to the door, before kicking it open.

He had expected to find a pile of teachers' corpses and a few living enemy. What Sasuke found instead were two twins in their young teens, maybe fourteen at most. That the two were standing over the corporeal remains of three terrorists with gore-drenched fire axes in hand made him want to slink backwards.

Instead of attacking like he thought they would, instead the two smiled almost innocently at him, creeping him out even further. When the two more or less began following him, the Torikujo found himself with the unenviable job of safely escorting a pair of possibly-insane, definitely murderous white haired sisters, all while trying to continue feeding information to the authorities who might or might not use it wisely ohfuckitall...

Two minutes later, the three of them had heard the shooting from the right hand building, heard the beginning of the Students' Uprising, and had moved to the window to see what they could. The turret began spinning slowly towards the students, when that girl with wild black hair and the blue shades tore apart the vehicle. As Sasuke provided running commentary to the phone, the twins were watching on with awe. "Sister, you never told me Nanami-chan was stronger in IRL than in the game!" said both at the same time, drawing the Torikujo's quirked eyebrow in response.

"You know who she is?" asked the Torikujo, shocked at her appetite for destruction.

The twins said in unison, "Yes, that's Shirotaka Nanami, the Iron Maiden."

'Kikouka, you bastard, you knew. You weren't helping a scientist, you were making a SOLDIER!'

* * *

*Torikujo - Land Captain, AKA Army Captain


	19. 2-4: Dare To Be Badass

Zero Hour: get RECT(Vier); Dare To Be Badass

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 31 Days: April 22nd, 2025, Building #3)

As [Roberto] looked on at the aftermath of the rescue of a few hundred students, he could not help but worry about Nanami. After she had pulled a new weapon out of the wreckage of the BRDM, she had spotted the body of Rindo, seen the pallor of his corpse. It was obvious that she knew he was gone even before she knelt low to the young man's body, tears leaking from her eyes. "I'm so sorry... If I hadn't dragged you into this, you might still be alive..." said she.

This sparked something in Roberto, how Nanami had kept several of the other kids safe, venturing out in the company of several of the older children from the orphanage in the Town of Beginnings. Every time one of them would get hurt, she would fret over the danger she had let them get into; the two times someone had actually died, she had been inconsolable for weeks, taking responsibility for an act not her own doing. He did not know quite what moved him, but the next thing he knew, he was standing next to her kneeling form, hand on her shoulder. "Nanami, you aren't the one responsible for this." As she looked up at Roberto, bleary-eyed, he added, "You've always acted like the weight of the entire world was on your shoulders, but one person, no matter how strong, can not stop all the misdeeds of others... Even if you do have the strength of a thousand men, the rest of us can stand on our feet."

Roberto heard the shuffling of feet behind him; a number of the other students were getting closer to the two of them. Turning, he spotted many he had worked beside, cried alongside, almost died with several times in the Death Game. When he looked at their lack of surety, inspiration struck him. For the first time since he woke up from SAO, his voice did not carry that squeakiness of adolescence, now a strong voice full of emotion and resolve.

"We stand here upon holy ground." That comment brought looks of shock, of rage, of incredulity, but Roberto pushed forward. "Where one of our brothers falls, wherever one of our sisters takes her last breath in battle to protect the rest of us? There that ground is hallowed, made so by the blood of those who gave their lives for ours."

"It was the same in SAO, when we would die, one by one to push forward, it made the entire effort onward worth more, because if we stopped, all that effort, the blood, sweat, and tears needed to get that far would have been thrown aside, wasted, useless and torn." The first hints of awareness struck some few of the others present, from the looks on their faces. "Through that battlefield, Kayaba's curse on mankind made us more than fellow players; though it was likely not his intent, it made us family!"

A few eyebrows lifted, mostly by those who had come from elsewhere for the Science Fair. They could not know until now when they had risen up in defense of themselves. Roberto nodded to mark the point, "Now look about you. He is your brother; she your sister, made so by the sick bastards who would kill us all! Would you abandon your friends, your family, now when we are needed most?"

"These madmen attacked us for the purpose of making us sacrifices to a fallen ideal, one that has killed millions worldwide before it fell under its own weight. They would kill us to serve the rotten, festering corpse of Marx' fevered nightmare, slay us so that they might somehow force our families and friends who have not struggled, into the same communist pesthole they believe 'just'!" The scorn Roberto poured into that statement drew an angry murmur from the gathering crowd of students, and he shouted, "To hell with them! We were reborn through the Death Game for this!"

"We are not alone. Two of our own made more than mortal through their struggle against Kayaba's war on his players are with us! Nanami was maimed by [Laughing Coffin], yet now she stands, made stronger through survival, her discoveries able to make better lives for all those who suffered what she has! [Death Gun] appeared killing that monstrous Red Guild, and now marches a path parallel to ours in one of the other buildings! With heroes like this standing beside us, how can we fail?"

The burning inspiration from Roberto's speech reached a blazing pitch with some students screaming out, "We can't!" sharply, as the teenager smiled wildly, perhaps a little madly. "Then let us go forth, we Sons of War, Daughters of Strife! Let us go forth, and free our friends, our family, and those undeserving of death at the hands of evil men! We stand, Children of the Death Game, so now onward! Let them never forget that united as one we stand, unbreakable, as we march onward to VICTORY!"

* * *

(Building #2)

The squad patrolled the second and third floors of the left hand building, trying to hunt down [Death Gun]. It was a dangerous task to begin with, one fraught with the herculean task of hunting one 'man' down in the middle of such a large building. The fact that the ten unfortunates believed themselves soldiers did not help, they were nothing of the sort aside from training from their benefactors in the PRC. Their mindset was entirely wrong for the purpose at hand, and that was what would doom them.

They weren't in a war movie as the heroes. They were in a horror movie, and Death Gun was the monster. As any horror movie fan will tell you, you never, ever split the group up.

Asada Shino knew she needed to be careful. The vest combined with her own protection made her a lot more resistant to gunfire than any human should be, but it slowed her down. In order to keep herself from getting rushed, she needed to do her work quickly, silently, and one at a time. Her pursuers made that far too easy for her.

The first man died in the bathroom Shino had been hiding in; a simple machete chop had taken the back of his neck quickly enough that he never got to shout out a warning. When the next man to die had enough of waiting for him and entered, he saw the head staring at the door he entered through from the sink it had been tossed in. That one rushed in to shoot the killer, and tripped over the nylon line in the entry stall. Falling face first, he never saw his doom approach.

The third man of the patrol had been in one of the art classrooms; all the disturbing works from children who likely would have nightmares the rest of their lives had unnerved him. When he turned to examine a mannequin that had what looked like a hooded black duster, his eyes followed the coat up to view the masterpiece of the one member of Laughing Coffin who had gone to the school for a short while; [Ghoul's] mask had been made as a replacement for Xaxa's, a skull mask in interlocking hinged steel with red eyes.

The poor man jumped in fright, squealing like a little girl before he could calm himself. As his comrades called out over the radio, asking him what was wrong, he said, "You guys would have to see this to believe it." Shaking his head, he lowered his tone, "I can't believe I was afraid of this."

As if he had tempted fate one too many times, a raspy baritone rumble immediately behind him whispered into his ear, "You should be afraid."

After very briefly ensuring her own handiwork with her Karambits was finished (artistic, she thought sarcastically), Shino looked to the mask, and gasped herself, though not in fear. It looked so much like Souichi's stylized skull mask that there had to be a link, but more than that, she had seen the terror it dragged out of her latest victim. Picking it up off the mannequin, she marveled at how heavy it was; it must have been made from laminated steel. She had a moment of hesitation as she remembered how she started down her path, before she took off her scarf to try it on.

Shino was surprised to find that, with her voice changer over her mouth, the mask fit well, if not perfectly. More important, though, was the fact that after she locked the seals in place, she could see out the holes. She hissed in surprise as she found everything in slightly brighter shades than the world around her; she looked to the side, and _felt_ the mask vibrate ever so slightly as her view followed those in the cameras in the skull's eyeholes.

'Holy. Shit.' thought she, before looking back to the mannequin once more. Ripping the overcoat off, she draped it over herself; with the vest on it fit snugly, almost as if it were made for this moment. Shaking her head slightly, she turned, only to catch a view of herself in the mirror as she did so.

It was as different from her natural look as night was from day, and it was exactly what she had envisioned Death Gun to be from the very beginning, the taint from the Death Game and its engineer showing in this form. She hated it, hated how Xaxa of the Red Eyes still seemed alive now through her, but Shino knew this could help her, protect her from the terrorists as she gave them something to be truly afraid of.

The fourth of that squad, a portly demo man too old for this shit, actually saw his death approaching, saw the Grim Reaper's avatar in steel, and died standing on that spot, too terrified to move.

* * *

(Building #3)

The remaining squad in the building had learned its lesson from the others who had died that day; they went as a single unit, spread widely apart so that no more than two of them could have been killed by the thermobaric grenades that they had brought and then lost to the students who had turned upon them with frighteningly lethal effect. No, they had it planned out, regroup as a single unit, then evacuate to the main building; the third building was lost to them, and in five minutes the shaped charges inside were going to blow. They had to escape, and they needed to do so _now_.

They also had orders to kill anything or anyone that looked like they might get in the way. When they spotted a girl barely into her midteen years with funny blue sunglasses peering around the corner at them, they opened fire, though not quickly enough to catch her in the copious quantities of gunfire they had launched.

What rounded the corner next was not the girl, not a weapon, but the welded steel noseplate of the late BRDM which had been killed in the foyer. Turned on its side like it was, it made an effective if weighty tower shield; the bullets that struck simply bounced, unable to penetrate either the 14mm of plate, or the black chain saltire* which now decorated its facing side. Not even the one Dragunov the squad had was equal to the task.

One of the 'soldiers' had the brilliant idea that if he got around the side of the plate he could shoot the girl behind it, not thinking that someone who could casually carry such a thing could, would, and did simply slap him aside like an insect with it, knocking him into the nearest set of lockers with enough force to break multiple bones sickeningly loudly.

The shield slam had opened the teenager's other hand to the squad, and as she slid her rear foot forward, the weight of the four barreled minigun she had ripped off the BRDM pointed at the leftmost soldier, spinning up rapidly to fire.

All of the terrorists wore the standard Class IV body armor their supplier had managed to acquire, which would have been sufficient for protection from a standard sniper rifle round. It was laughably insufficient against the 12.7mm SLAP* and HEIAP* rounds the minigun spewed out at a rate of 4000 rounds per minute, as five terrorists became half the man they used to be in three quarters of a second to the accompaniment of a loud bass hum.

The girl saw the pistol come up, and slid the shield into place to deflect all but one round, which struck her left shoulder. A spike of simulated pain struck her as the round penetrated the touch-sensitive polymer that made up her prostheses' skin before flattening against the Kevlar underneath. A low growl escaped her lips as she slowly advanced, taking every bullet the soldiers had for her on the improvised shield.

"Oh fuck, it will not die, it WILL NOT DIE!" screamed one of the Reds when she slammed her shield down in response to the grenade thrown her way, propping it up with her shoulder as it struck, as it exploded raining shrapnel everywhere but into her. "IT ISN'T HUMAN!" guessed the easily-excited terrorist, unknowingly half correct.

Their killer slowly, implacably walked forward, shield being pushed along the ground making it screech like the damned running fingernails across a chalkboard. Three of the terrorists broke and ran, making it halfway to the exit before the minigun spat death once more.

Apparently the killer had become bored, because she ran towards the last of the communists, ripping the bullet out of her shoulder with her teeth and spitting it aside. Seeing death coming for him, the last terrorist in Building #3 put his last clip in the pistol, aimed upwards under his own chin, and fired.

"All right guys, that should be the last of them. They looked like they were running from something, though, and all that talk about bombs is making me worried; get everyone out of here, Roberto, and get them clear of the building, in case it goes." said Shirotaka Nanami, making her own way to the exit as she followed her own advice.

* * *

(Building #1)

"oh shit." whispered the Red Captain as he heard the end of one of his platoons by robot minigun fire.

* * *

(Building #2, 5 minutes earlier)

A single gunshot had rung out down the hallway, a single life had ended.

"Death Gun! If you don't get to the foyer in 5 minutes, the next one dies, then the next one, and so on, you false hero!" was shouted into Building #2's intercom system by someone who obviously was long past losing it. As Asada Shino listened to him ramble, she was following the last man of the patrol squad, a piece of coiled wire in her hands. Ducking through an open doorway, she cursed silently.

If she hadn't been picked out by the Heartbreaker, none of this would have happened. She could have found another way out, another way to stop the bastards that were willing to end five hundred lives for shits and giggles. Sinon cursed herself for following the path of the gunslinger, for touching another of those instruments of death. She had become a monster, and now others would die for it. For the first time in a month, she did not know immediately what to do.

Go surrender to the enemy? They would kill her on the spot, then figure out that the bombs they had set would never go off without the demo pad; they would then kill the rest of the students on the spot. Kill them one at a time? They would take their time killing the students in as painful a fashion as possible.

Then she heard Roberto's speech over the radio, and her depressing thoughts took a different angle. They honestly thought she was one of them? If it weren't so sad, she would laugh right then; she had not fought for two years day in and out. Nanami was the name of the girl who she had left there? At least now she knew the other had survived for real, had become a hero.

The dare to fight onward stopped her thoughts, and she knew the young man she was listening to was right; it was victory or death not only for her, but for all of them. Her mind fled back to that babbling drug addict six years ago; her mind picked out the other people there, the men, women, and children that might have been shot if she had not bit him, had not shot him dead. Her thoughts followed through to the Death Game she had been forced to fight in, the four lives she had ended, along with the thirteen human swine she had put down, but also the one life she had saved, that had in turn saved so many in the other building. If she had truly been a monster, Asada Shino would have left Nanami to die, or silenced her in order to cover her escape.

That the other teenager had not spilled on her touched the young vigilante, had not given the police an entirely accurate description, could mean many things, but it had allowed Sinon's work, Death Gun's duty, to continue. How many people at the church would have died had those six been allowed to murder the victim they had come for? How many more lives would the snuff film crew ended? Shino found herself pondering that in the short time she had before the next execution would take place, even as she found her way to her feet.

(Now.)

As she passed through the hallway over the foyer, she saw the banner hanging over the side, supported by aircraft cable hanging over the railing, and an idea formed in Shino's mind. The last patroller came through like clockwork, and she snuck up behind him. Slipping a loop of the cable around his neck as she kicked the back of his knee out, he went up onto her, and then over her as she kept his motion going. He had just enough time to scream in fear before he went over the railing, his descent stopped only by the loud _**CRACK**_! his neck made as the cable went taut. All eyes went upwards.

The young speechmaker had called her a hero; her previous kills were for selfish or fearful reasons, but to those who might not know better, they might seem heroic. Shino felt like such a hypocrite, she could do better, be better than she was ever before, if she would do what she did for the right reasons.

Her soul began to warm up. The lie had taken its first step along the way to becoming truth.

She sneaked a peek underneath the railing at the man holding a pistol. He needed to be first; he had already murdered an innocent. There was nothing Shino could do about that, but she could keep him from doing so again. That was the problem with the police, they could only react after the fact, while she could just simply act, could stop evil men from harming others before they had the chance.

The moron with the gun heard metal bounce off the floor near him and his next victim, saw the round piece of metal. One of his men figured it out before he did, and shouted, "GRENADE!" The sergeant pushed his victim onto the grenade, hoping to use the girl as a meat shield, and so sealed his own fate.

Shino had been holding back the other two grenades she had at hand, waiting for that moment. Throwing the black M-18 grenades onto the floor beneath her and where the would-be victim was, she waited the half second for the black smoke to start flowing forth, before using the last patroller's corpse as a counterweight for herself, the pulley holding his hanging line allowing her to descend to the battlefield from above. As she landed, a pair of hellish red orbs glowed out from the smoke, and she said, "Ice. I am a machine made of cold ice."

She had not expected it when she had first put it on, but by biting the mouthpiece toggle, the goggles switched from ex-light to infrared. Shino smiled under her mask. Whoever had made this was a genius; she hoped to thank him regardless of if he was in Laughing Coffin, for he made this possible; she could see the standing Reds, while all they could see of her was her mask's eyes, and even that was distorted the longer the smoke flowed.

Her AKMS barked once, twice, thrice, and three bodies hit the ground, holes through heads as Shino abused her advantage for all it was worth. The other seven had been somewhat smarter, and dove for cover. Since that cover by and large consisted of students, she couldn't simply shoot the cowards dead through it, but she could see the metal of their weapons, it was a different temperature than the surrounding materials. Stalking them slowly, she waited for them to try to track the hellish red pits of despair, waited for weapons to come up as she moved.

She did not need to wait long, her fourth victim on the ground floor had thought better of using a grenade launcher and drew his pistol; as he rose Shino put him back down, this time for good. The fifth and sixth tried tracking her shots by sound and missed, but did enable the students next to them the ability to know where they were, hold them down, and beat them well past an inch of their lives.

The seventh was smart, picking up on how the others were dropped almost instantly, he eschewed his gun in exchange for a knife. When those red eyes passed close by, he swung up, expecting to feel tearing flesh. Shino's choice to wear the vest proved itself then with the knife lodging in one of the plates; the slayer responded in kind, but being able to see her opponent meant she could actually strike somewhere that would hurt, such as the eyes. His screaming was silenced by a second slash across his throat.

The smoke had begun to dissipate at that point; Shino switched back to ex-light as she noted everyone moving more easily, and spotted two of the three men left trying to wave the smoke away so they could get a good look at the doom of their platoon. As students moved around, Shino had to wait carefully for her shots; when the two pushed students away from them, they handed their lives over to the steel-faced avatar of the Grim Reaper.

One man remained; this one had taken a European girl hostage, knife close to her throat. "So, you think you can stop me from killing her, you son of a bitch?" As Shino raised her gun to end the threat, she found she needn't have bothered to aim much; he picked the sweetest-looking girl in her group without understanding that one should always beware the nice ones.

A headbutt back, followed by the redhead pushing up and outward with both arms broke both the terrorist's hold on her, and on his knife. Seeing the vigilante, the girl simply dropped onto her butt and out of the way, landing a punch up on the way down out of spite.

One final lead valentine spat out, and the last of the terrorists in the left hand building died, a pretty little red dot showing between the eyes on the one side, and the wall getting a fresh coat of crimson paint on the other.

"OK kids, time to get the hell out of here. I need everyone to leave in as orderly a fashion as possible from the exit most completely opposite the main building; look for the cops, they should be here by now." Shino didn't bother telling them about the bombs, about the snipers she was sure would have set up by now; if they got out safely, it didn't matter at all. Instead, she headed the other way, policing a Dragunov sniper rifle on her way towards the main building. 'Someone's been a very naughty boy...' thought she, as she collected a few odds and ends on her way through to the exit.

* * *

Saltire: A diagonal cross, used generally in heraldry, but in this case as a way for Nanami to hold onto her shield.

SLAP: Saboted Light Armor Penetrator. .50 cal rounds with SLAP heads can penetrate 19mm of homogenous steel armor plate at 1500 meters.

HEIAP: High Explosive Incendiary Armor Piercing. The Raufoss Mark 211, which this shell is based off from, is stated to be able to penetrate 51mm of homogenous steel plate.


	20. 2-5: Its Name Is Valkyrie

This is the last Zero Hour snip of this arc. Anyone who's read the rest of them know what's coming; I hope this turned out better than I thought it did.

That being said, it's time for...

* * *

Zero Hour: get RECT(Fünf); Its Name Is Valkyrie

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 31 Days: April 22nd, 2025, Building #1)

The Red Captain knew the outer buildings were lost, and with them all the men he had placed there, two full platoons gunned down. It was an impossibility, one that proved all their planning worthless. He had worked his mind around the police, around the army, only to find his men cut down by something worse, something within the school walls themselves, something perhaps not entirely human.

The ones in the left building had been cut down in their entirety by one monster in human clothing, the Killer of Killers, [Death Gun]. Somehow the vigilante had known, had somehow prepared for this very moment of the beginning of the Revolution of the Proletariat, and stepped in, crushed a full third of his forces like the supernatural force his belief tried (and was failing now) to deny.

The other building's Red Guards had been butchered by something even more unbelievable. The students, teenagers at best, had risen up against what would guarantee the future of their countrymen, had rebelled against the greater good of Communism, and had done so in convincing fashion. Led by some kind of killer robot monstrosity and a teenaged boy with a true gift for inspiring speech, they had cleared the building of his men well shy of the detonation he had planned.

Now? Building #2's bomb control was still on, out of his hands; Death Gun had taken the Heartbreaker's demo board, preventing the destruction of that building. Building #3, on the other hand, had not been fully set up for demolition when the walking disaster his men had come to call Nanami of the Counterattack had struck, but the exits had all been rigged first in case something went wrong. That bit of planning proved prescient on Ikari Nanbou's part now, with that building's board going offline, he could close it down, hopefully kill all the little bastards trying to get out, and if Fate was smiling upon him, kill the hellish death machine that had forced his hand.

Once, twice, thrice his fingers toggled the safety, just as Ikari had taught him; it was an old demolition good luck charm, and still used for good reason. If something was wrong with the bombs, then there would be an error message coming up. As his fingers prepared to press the button that would disintegrate the entrance pillars on the eight exits to the building, he saw a flood of humanity flee through the main entrance, and cursed. 'No help for it now', thought he as he tapped down once.

A single crack of thunder erupted as sixteen charges went off simultaneously. The outside facade cracked, splintered, sundered, as the concrete and rebar gave way near the entries. As he looked at the entry closest Building #1, he saw a pair of glowing blue eyes from just inside the doorway disappear in concrete dust and falling debris, he had gotten the bitch!

The terrorist leader called out over the radio to his men. "Building three is now closed off, the last of our men died fighting. The robot that killed them, though, is dead, tons of rubble upon its head! Nothing could survive that, and nothing can stop us now!" Cheers followed that announcement from the terrorists.

* * *

(Outside Building #3)

As the building entrances collapsed behind him, [Roberto] knew. Nanami had been chasing the last soldiers out, towards the main building. She must have been near the exit when they were destroyed. "Nanami? Are you all right? Answer me!" he begged, distraught at the apparent loss of the heart of the escapees.

Looking over to the group of children he had evacuated at Nanami's insistence, he shook his head. He didn't have time to think about it now, his small mob of players and students were his responsibility now. Not all of them had made it safely out of the entrance before it had blown; several students needed to be carried out. Looking then to the bus line, Roberto motioned to move out. "Anyone with a gun, lay down covering fire against the main building as the rest of the students retreat. We need to make sure that Nanami's actions weren't in vain. Move out!"

* * *

(Building #2)

Shino had heard the explosion, heard the commentary over the radio from the terror cell and from Roberto; the former cheered the death of a real hero, while the latter sounded heartbroken as he gave the command to fall back. She looked to the exit from this building; if the commies had any kind of brains in their heads, they would have someone covering the exit. She was determined not to let that matter, not to let any of them leave the school in anything but body bags.

Pulling the pins on two smoke grenades, she dropped one just inside the exit before kicking the door open, rolling the other out. She needed to milk the effect her new appearance might have, use the terror like a poison against the attackers to mess with them long enough for her to enter their last stronghold.

* * *

(Building #1)

The two members of the sniper team on the third floor of the main building were carefully watching the exit closest their building, expecting the monster that had ended the lives of thirty of their friends to simply stroll out of it, and put a bullet between his eyes the instant Death Gun was revealed.

What they didn't expect was all the black smoke wafting out the door like the harbinger of doom it was. As the grenades emptied their payload, the two had no idea what would emerge. They both had seen the videos, had seen Death Gun end six gangsters as easily as breathing came to most people. When they saw the black smoke suddenly burst forth, the sniper's trigger finger jumped as he took a shot not properly aimed. He had seen that thing, that killer in black, red, and chrome, and he knew fear as its eyes tracked him, traced the bullet back to its source.

A pistol slid out, and the Black Star spat defiance at the two of them, breaking the windows all about them as they rolled out of the way of incoming fire. They called back, "Sir! Death Gun is headed in. It's not human... It's straight from heUHRK!"

Their concentration on the threat below had kept them from noticing the figures slipping into the room they had appropriated, prevented their eyes from coming across the forms of two white-haired teenage girls with bloody fire axes. The spotter heard his partner's pained surprise, and looked back just in time to see the axe blade swing into his head.

The third member of their section returned to the room in time to see the bloodied remains of his mates, as well as the odd killers. "Get on your knees! Now!" he shouted out, fumbling to bring his AK up in some semblance of order.

All he did was alert the other living adult in the room to his need for disposal. The terrorist felt a gun barrel next to his head, then nothing at all as he dropped lifelessly to the ground. "I'm not your mother last night." spat the [Torikuji] spitefully, the barrel of his rifle slick. Looking back to the girls, he sighed as he watched them continue swinging, "All right, [Hansel], [Gretel], enough. They're dead already."

That was when he heard the laughter over the radio, the hateful snicker of a teenaged girl. When she spoke, her voice chilled his blood; she was speaking in poetic timing, that of a classic Tanka style.

"For Their Blood She Comes,"  
"Laughing Coffin's Survivor."  
"Bearing Thousands' Strength,"  
"She Rides A Blazing Steel Steed."

* * *

(Remains of Building #3)

There was a slight pause before the last line. In that short span of time, some of the rubble from the exit door spat outward, the result of being shot out by a certain heavy minigun being ramped up. One kick later, and cement slabs fell away from the very outer edge of the wreckage. Holding up a slab with her shield, Shirotaka Nanami walked forward slowly, purposefully, eyes blazing brightly as she calmly intoned the refrain for her hasty poem. She couldn't be bargained with. She couldn't be reasoned with. She didn't feel pity, remorse, or fear. And she would not stop, ever, until these bastards were brought to justice.

"Her Name? [Iron Valkyrie]."

Nanami had been very, very lucky. If she had been any further forward when the charges' safeties went off, she would have been crushed in the resulting falling stone. Instead, she had been trapped as the exit dropped. She had the good sense to put her shield over her near when she jumped back from the exit; it had saved her life from the steel I-Beam that would have crushed her head. Now, after digging slowly (8m3/minute) to be safe, she had emerged, her false skin a bit worse for the wear and the plastic visor cracked, but otherwise ready to get right back to business.

* * *

(Building #1)

"Oh come on, that's no fair at all!" declared the Captain as he saw one of his big problems dust herself off through the monitors. Cursing, he said, "All right, I know when we're in deep shit. Pulling out, Plan AC! Everyone that can, get your asses to a BTR for evac." He looked over to Sugou, and sneered. "I bet you're loving this, you sick fuck." The leader of the terrorists looked singularly enraged as he spoke, unknowing just how true that statement was. "All right, laugh this off. Sarge, when I give the word, I want you to either gut this piece of carp crap or drag him along for the ride. Either way it goes? Don't be gentle."

As the Captain left, he looked to his personal squad, the men meant to keep him safe. They were the best trained, most skilled of his men, with greatest devotion to their cause. He hated what he was about to ask of them, they had been with him since the beginning. "All right guys, this is going to suck, no matter how this goes. The rest of the platoon isn't as hardcore as you guys are, so I need you to hold the line just long enough for everyone we've got left to evacuate before joining us. If it looks like they're going to get through, get out of the way and escape when you can."

Turning back to his demo board, he checked to make sure all the charges still had their detonators in them, before rallying the rest of his platoon. To say he was worried for the sniper team and the three men that had gone missing would be an understatement, but time was running short. If they couldn't make it to the BTRs on their own power, they'd need to be left behind. He popped the tablet back into his pants pocket, before heading out

A quick run back to the foyer, and he was able to hop into the BRDM he would be leaving here in. If he had looked more closely where his feet had been, he might have seen a pair of red eyes staring back up at him from under the nearest BTR.

The elites did not have to wait long for action to come to them as they worked the intersection Death Gun and Nanami would be coming through; they lined the length of the hallways with soapdish charges and claymores. They had expected the reluctant heroes to take the shortest route to them, and planned accordingly.

There were shorter routes still.

Nanami had jumped up to a second story window; the unfortunate bastards never saw her coming, never heard her approach, until they heard the bass hum of a minigun firing around a circular section of what was to them the ceiling, and her the floor. Death Gun, on the other hand, had finished her work where they had the vehicles lagered up, and began aiming at the supposed elites from behind with the Dragunov she had swiped.

Neither had expected the other, but as Nanami descended, Shino smiled under her mask as her first target went down. She cycled to the next even as Nanami rolled off of the flooring she had landed on.

The minigun continued to spin even after the fifty round burst that had let Nanami skip the stairs, and as she came up, she did so firing, the three in the thirty-degree arc to Nanami's left finding out what it was like to have 12.7mm shells made for killing vehicles transiting their bodies between Nanami's gun arm and the wall. "DUCK!" screamed Death Gun as the killer saw one of the others swing a pistol the young cyborg's way, plinking off the next nearest one and waiting for Nanami to do so.

The self-named Iron Valkyrie did not take long to do so, spinning as she did so and spotting the two behind Death Gun, "BEHIND YOU!" firing one more burst to claim them as she did so even as the killer picked off the one aiming for her. "Thanks for dropping in, 'Valkyrie'." said Death Gun matter of factly, even as Nanami counted the bodies up.

"OK, I count eight and a half, these guys run in ten man squads. Where's the last one?" wondered Nanami with a bit of worry, before Shino snickered and pointed down near the other teen's feet where she had landed; the last man had been the first to fall, knocked to the floor by the falling ceiling and flooring.

"I think if he's still alive, he's going to be making a comment on how much you weigh."

They heard the motors rev up, and Nanami turned towards the entrance. "They're getting away!" she screamed, before noticing Death Gun hold up a small tablet computer in each hand.

"No, no they aren't."

* * *

The notice came over the radio to end Sugou and his assistant, and the sergeant nodded, knowing just how far everything must have gone to shit for this to have happened. Two enemies had gutted the Revolutionary Force by themselves. "What is this school anyway, a fucking academy for super soldiers?" He shook his head, before turning his knife over in his hands. "Nothing personal, actually; I'll make this nice and easy for the both of you. You'll have about a second of pain, and then you'll be gone. I'm not a sick sadistic fuck like the Captain and the Heartbreaker, it'll be quick."

The other three men in the room had their backs to the wall, guns towards the door. If... When Death Gun and this Iron Valkyrie came in, they were ready for them, they thought.

That was before a slab of steel slammed through the wall, the arm behind it using the hole to grab one soldier and make a larger hole pulling him through. It was before a sniper round blew out through the skull of another, both attacks guided by the men leaning against the wall. It was before the third man turned around just in time for a man in JSDF Army Uniform to shoot through the window of the office door five times into the sergeant with the knife. It was before the last thing that went through that final terrorist's mind before he died was a fire axe stained a considerably different shade of red.

* * *

(Inside the BRDM)

"FUCK!" screamed the Red Captain as the four BTRs and the two BRDMs began turning about to leave the school. They had been in for a whopping forty five minutes, all told, out of their planned two hours, and were leaving without Sugou Nobuyuki, alive or dead. Of his one hundred and five men, only twenty-one would be leaving. The only thing that had gone right was the fact that they were past the bus line now, the miniguns on the two BRDMs mincing cop cars as they fled. The Chinese weapons dealer had said these would do APCs with the right rounds, and the salesman had not been kidding; anything within was likely already dead.

He slid his hand down to the knee pocket of his khakis, the one that had his tablet in it. The Captain was going to kill everyone in that one building; maybe he'd get lucky and do Sugou with the explosion. His heart skipped a beat when he felt for the tablet, and came up with nothing. Putting his hand all the way into the pocket, he felt a neat tear in the bottom of it, made with a knife by his guess. " _ **NO.**_ "

* * *

(10 minutes earlier)

Shino had taken the long way around, straight to the lagering area, on purpose. Eventually these tools would try to get out of here; she was determined with Nanami's apparent death that they would die doing so.

All of those lovely shaped charges were perfect for her plans; the satchel bag she was carrying held all of them in place well, and as she slid from closely parked BTR to closely parked BTR, she sighed to herself. Sneaking around like this had been all too easy; the threat of her killing them all had forced the terrorists to draw their men back. She only had to sneak around two guards who were looking out towards the cops, not inwards towards her.

She was not demolition trained, something Shino knew she would need to if she was going to keep this shit up, but she was fairly certain any charge meant to drop a building would be enough to punch through the bottom armor of a tank. She was wrong, but these were not tanks. Erring on the side of caution, she gave each vehicle two of the charges she had pilfered.

The skull-faced killer was just getting done with the last one when the Captain strolled by, distracted by the other goings-on. Seeing the same kinds of pockets the Heartbreaker had stored his demo pad in, she put two and two together when she saw a bulging pocket, and moving quickly as he tried to get in through the hatches, cut quickly. It was risky. It was foolish.

* * *

(Now.)

Holy shit, it had worked. As Shino rested, back against the wall, she started giggling before stopping herself. Even with the voice changer, it would not do to act like a girl near Nanami. "Hello, oh False Captain. This is [Death Gun]," using her proper name, "I'm sorry that your men can not come to the radio right now. They're indisposed with a slight case of lead poisoning."

As her fingers played over the safeties, she ran them once before she began working her way towards the numbered charges on the moving vehicles. "You might be wondering where your tablet has disappeared to. Well, you were too busy trying to climb into your tank to notice, but I was right under you, and hey look, all the bombs in the first building are now deactivated."

She looked over to Nanami, who was watching for when the Communist Block vehicles cleared the police line; the other woman drew a line over her throat with an extended thumb, and Death Gun cackled madly. "However, I am so very happy to tell you that your bombs are going to find use today!" The first two bombs went off, blowing through the roof of the foremost BRDM and blocking the convoy they had been running in. The rear vehicle was next, Shino's fingers working their way up the list towards the Captain's vehicle.

"Since you were going to blow up all these children who have already been through so much? Since you've already murdered so many? Well, when you get to Hell, please do apologise to them on my behalf, because I'm pretty sure they do not want you there anyway. Something about lowering the average IQ of those there by your presence I'm sure." Shino moved to hand the pad over to Nanami, but held back when the other woman shook her head.

"This is to make sure you never get a chance to kill again, you sick fuck. Good bye, and good riddance." finished Shino as she pressed the last two buttons, getting up to watch the flames as the last BRDM went up, its gas tank blowing out underneath it.

It had been worth it all. Even if she got busted, even if she went to jail for the rest of her life for showing herself, Asada Shino was finally happy. She had done something right.

* * *

(Building #1, Ladies' Bathroom)

Nanami had seen Death Gun leave, heading towards the restrooms, and sighed. That form seemed male, but some of the gestures, the comments, seemed different. Eh, no matter. There was no way the Angel's Doppelganger was Death Gun, she lacked the sheer menace Death Gun exuded. She was willing to think nothing of it, until she had seen that one judge's assistant follow Death Gun. Curiosity piqued, Nanami followed, keeping her distance and using the reflections on the glass to follow the apparent secretary.

When Death Gun entered the Ladies' Restroom, she was a bit surprised, but when the secretary reached under her dress for something, Nanami's eyes narrowed in, trying to pick out what the other woman was going for. When she spotted a narrow chrome cylinder, she was suspicious, but when she saw the pistol come out, Nanami thought she knew who had given the communists all the information they needed.

She was wrong, the assistant had seen Death Gun and the dollar signs instantly lit up. Sugou thought his personal assassin was working for him and selling out Tono; Tono thought the same about Sugou. She had been playing both of them for some time, but Tono's payout for a successful hit on Death Gun was enough to make it worth it; she would do the deed and then get away.

As the assassin entered the bathroom, Nanami slid in behind, watching, waiting until the woman raised the pistol in front of a stall door. Like a flash, she was there, hand grasping the silencer and squeezing, ruining the shot. Hissing in displeasure, the assassin pulled a knife from her sleeve, and slashed at Nanami hastily. It would prove to be that personal assassin's final mistake.

Knocking politely on the stall door after the deed was done, Nanami asked, "Are you all right in there?" The squeaky reply, "Oh crap." was all she needed to know; she waited for the one who saved her from Laughing Coffin the second time to come out on her own.

As Asada Shino opened the door sans mask, she saw the savior of Building #3, and nodded. She knew. "So, where do we go from here, then?" asked she, pointedly ignoring the dead body on the ground.

Extending her hand, Nanami let her first smile since this had begun cross her lips. "Shirotaka Nanami, so nice to meet you."

Taking Nanami's artificial hand in one of her own, Shino smiled sweetly. No matter how this turned out, she had beaten that darker nature. She had won. "Asada Shino. It's nice to meet you as well."

Next time in Zero Hour: The Albanian.


	21. 3-1: Crime

OK guys, it's the first part of the next chapter of Zero Hour! This time, inspiration from Black Lagoon, Dragonforce, and a certain comic book character that wears black and white!

* * *

Zero Hour: The Albanian(Einz); Crime

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 45 Days: May 6th, 2025)

The Watermark Hotel Nagasaki was the high mark of Sasebo's hotels, with excellent service, perfect English speaking by its staff, and massive suites on the penthouse floor for its most distinguished guests.

Under any normal circumstances, Asada Shino doubted she would ever have found herself in the receiving room of one of the suites on that floor. She was chatting amiably over tea with the man who, fourty-eight hours earlier, made an attempt on her life, and whos arm was in a cast from the results of that sniper duel.

"I do find myself more than a little surprised by all that you've told me. After all, Tono did put the hit out on me, why aren't you turning that pistol back on me?" said Shino, mystified at the turn of events that had led up to this meeting with one of the world's one hundred most lethal men.

The man, an amused-looking European blue-eyed blonde with aristocratic features and impeccable early morning attire, relaxed back in his chair as he exhaled delicately over the top of the fine china cup holding his personal blend of Asram Tea. Shino found it oddly disconcerting that when steeped, it had the crimson hue of freshly spilled blood, but its taste seemed smooth to her. She would have worried about poison in the cup, but the man in front of her could have killed her any number of untraceable ways after she entered the suite; whatever his reasons, he must have had some reason to keep her alive.

After taking a refined sip, the man smiled, and said, "Because I owe a favor to an acquaintance who would be rather put out if I killed you, [Sinon]. It would be rather impolite to end the relative of one of the Princes of Thorns, especially after I returned Tono's fee."

The smile widened into a wicked (if cultured) grin as he added, "After all, he failed to do his due diligence when he put the hit on you. Had he done that, he would have known better than to try hiring an assassin from the Covenant of Thorns."

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 31 Days: April 22nd, 2025: SAO Returnee School)

Shino and Nanami had tried to figure out a way for [Death Gun] to disappear after the terrorists had been dealt with. The presence of the extra dead body, killed after the last of the terrorists had been rendered incapable of further resistance, made it so that they would need to make it appear that Death Gun had left the building and that the assassin was the last of the communists.

This meant they would need to make it appear that Shino had been in Building #2 the entire time.

A large gym duffel provided the solution; Shino would ditch her gear in the ducting of the ladies room the two were in, before Nanami would carry her in the duffel to the other building. Things became interesting when Nanami had picked out the news helicopter over the school; simply walking to the other building would get the two of them noticed, would likely get Shino caught.

Nanami thought it over for a few minutes, before coming to a twisted idea. Carrying the duffel up the stairs, she shushed Shino as they ended up on the roof. Just as she was ready, she asked Shino, "Tell me, have you ever flown before?"

Shino's frightened "WHATAREYOUDOINGHOLYSHITAAAAAAGH!" was drowned out by the sounds of the sirens around the schools. The helicopter zoomed in on Nanami as she started sprinting, leaving small craters where her feet hit the ground, before leaping the distance between the buildings' roofs. As she landed, she needed to match her running to the velocity she had launched the two of them, almost tripping several times before she got the right rhythm.

Nanami finally let Shino out of the bag after the two were in cover; Sinon looked as if she had seen a ghost. "Never do that again. Please..." said the hardened killer of killers, shuddering as she looked around to catch her bearings.

"Oh, come on, it was fun feeling the breeze whip across my face." spoke her 'rescuer', as the two walked into the room where the headless corpse of Ikari Nanbou, The Heartbreaker, lay in a pool of its own blood. "Ewww. Did you have to make a mess like this?" spoke the more innocent of the two as she stepped around the body, even as Shino ripped the dress she had on. "Wait, what are you doing, Shino?"

Taking the boots off, Shino set them to one side before putting on the shirt Nanbou had been wearing before his demise. "Isn't it obvious, Shirotaka-sama? This evil man was about to do sick, sick things to me just before Death Gun came in and saved me from his grasp." As far as lies went, it was close enough to the truth that few might look much further. She felt through the pockets to make sure nothing too surprising was in them as she added, "He left me here though, he didn't want me in the way, but sent you back to rescue me after the deed was done."

The zipties she removed from the left pocket made her want to retch; if Nanbou had picked any of the other girls... "I'm glad you're dead, you son of a bitch." spat Shino, before her lips twisted into a frown. "Okay, Nanami, this is going to sound weird, but I'm going to need you to tie my arms behind my back." The younger-seeming teen tilted her head, taking a few seconds to get moving, but as she did so, Nanami gasped. "You mean to complete the illusion." A nod from Shino, and she cinched the tie shut. The police outside would have to get it off later, completing the act of Asada Shino, Soccer Ball of the Universe.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 32 Days: April 23rd, 2025, Sasebo Naval Base)

It had been but a day since Shirotaka Nanami had fought back in real life, had been twenty-four hours since she had said, "Never Again." Oh what a difference a single day can make.

The news choppers had kept The Incident in the public eye; Nanami had seen herself emerge from Building #3. She had looked like some kind of cyborg paladin, carrying that minigun, that noseplate-as-shield as she walked through the fire and ash. Even as she watched it, she had to answer questions from men who had never been in battle, who had never tasted sweet victory. Each scene in that brief time she had been visible from the sky was endlessly analyzed as educated morons in uniform tried to figure out what could turn a helpless, maimed child into the terrorist mulching machine she had become.

Obviously none of them had ever heard of SAO.

It had been the same for the other members of what [Roberto] had jokingly called the Counter-Revolution, the teenagers who had done something, anything, to continue to survive. Every shot was gone over in mind-numbing detail. It had gotten on her nerves, and she finally had enough.

Her fingers had dug into the side of the table they were showing the footage on; the fiberboard had gouges in it from where she had squeezed a bit too hard, before her eyes narrowed, and the table snapped in half down the middle. "What the FUCK is wrong with you? You couldn't stop Laughing Coffin from amassing a death trap in the middle of a city, you couldn't figure out that military vehicles in the streets might be more than a shitty movie scene, and you harass the ones who did your fucking jobs for you, when they shouldn't have had to?"

It's been said that silence can be deafening; Nanami knew the truth of that. She could hear the sweat drop from the officers around her as they found themselves on the defense from a fifteen year old Moe Terminator.

A voice of reason intruded on the scene as Kikouka Seijirou walked in with the Captain that had brought Hansel and Gretel along for the ride in Building #1. "Please, gentlemen, that's enough. The Major has had an exhausting day already, and you are not making things easier for any of us by angering her like this." Holding out bottled water to the teenager, he smiled at what he had originally thought to be an amusing side project that cost him little, the girl that had turned the castoffs of the EMOM project into a technological miracle, had remade herself as something more than human. "They're just afraid of your fellow returnees, they're concerned with their potential threat."

Nanami recalled the other man seemed familiar to her somehow, but she had not stuck around long enough to get his name before. She did know the others seemed reassured by his presence, after all the man had slain terrorists himself yesterday, had protected two teenagers, or so the story that was allowed to circulate went. It took her a short while staring at him, while Lt. Col. Kikouka (that was what his bars read) quirked an eyebrow. "Miss Nanami, do you know the [Torikuji]?"

Her eyes wandered to his nameplate, and went wide as she gasped. Composing herself, she rose from her chair and walked over to the man. "Excuse me, Captain, but I just noticed your surname. It's common in some areas, but would you happen to be related to Hiraga Saito, sir?" She paused, seeming uncertain for a moment.

Hiraga Sasuke narrowed his eyes; that man's disappearance had taken a lot out of him, especially after he had been trapped in the game even after it had been cleared. The old man's fooling around at far too young an age had tainted the Captain's younger years but that man had matured, become more as he grew older. "Yes, Miss Shirotaka. I knew that man well. I am honored to have called him, 'Father.' May I ask how you knew him?"

As her eyes closed, a tear could be seen leaking out as she whispered out, "Hiraga, [Arguile]-sama saved me and several of my friends from Laughing Coffin in SAO."

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 33 Days: April 24rd, 2025, Asada Residence)

The police had been polite to her, too polite to the 'last victim' of Ikari Nanbou.. They had kept her in the hospital for a day for observation, left her cards for all the kinds of counseling they thought she might need, while missing her homicidal tendencies entirely. Shino shook her head with a smile on her face, even as she turned on the news and prepared dinner for her guests.

After all, the police had been hunting The Heartbreaker for five years, that twisted man had terrorized so many during that time that his violent demise at the hands of Death Gun had divided them somewhat, even as there were celebratory toasts over the man's removal from the gene pool at a large number of Special Crimes units all over Japan. The fact that someone acting outside the law had put him down had elicited heated debate amongst the varied talking holes on television, on whether the cure was worse than the disease.

"I never have been able to figure out where you found your tolerance for those morons, Asada." said Shirou Endou, sighing as she lounged on the futon while toying with those two neuro helmets Shino had been gifted with. She had decided to keep working with Shino even after seeing the news footage of Death Gun bursting through the smoke like some kind of summoned demon. Her curiosity demanded it of her, she needed to see just how far down the rabbit hole went.

"So, did you find out anything about Shirotaka-sama?" asked the moe avatar of Death, slicing and dicing before sliding the veggies into the wok.

"There's a few things I picked out. Before Laughing Coffin grabbed her for your Death Game, she had been in SAO. Her brother was some kind of hacking genius, did some funny things to an AMUSphere that almost got him kicked off of ALO. That would have been better for him."

Her interest piqued, Shino sat on the futon, reading the article Endou had found. "Wow. After surviving SAO, her brother taken in the incident, then she got nabbed by Laughing Coffin. And I thought I had a bad life sometimes."

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 33 Days: April 24rd, 2025, Tono's Office)

It had been a month from absolute hell for Tono Issei. His organization had lost so many men, lost so much face that he had begun to wonder what spirit he had managed to piss off to hurt him this badly.

The Great Oyabun had just left, telling Tono to get his things in order; the Yakuza could survive whatever disaster that might come, but individual groups might be wiped out if, in the Oyabun's own words, "You don't stop shitting in your own bed." That a man more than a decade his junior would talk that crudely to Tono was a slight shock, but the man had the muscle to back it up.

The death of the assassin he had planted in Sugou's staff had only worsened things; he had no doubt whatsoever that Death Gun had taken the time out to off another valuable employee of his.

"With all due respect, Issei-sama," his majordomo began, "We don't have more guns. It's my duty to point out that-"

Tono's temper, which had been held so tightly for so many years, suddenly exploded. "It's your duty to make Sinon dead. Whatever it takes, no matter the cost." He paused, and added, "Call the Albanian."

His majordomo of twelve years frowned. "He's in Thailand, Tono-sama, he works for the Bratva..."

Glaring at his underling, Tono screamed, "CALL THE FUCKING ALBANIAN!"

Shocked at the rage his boss showed, the other man nodded, and said, "I'll call the Albanian."


	22. 3-2: Psychopath

Zero Hour: The Albanian(Zwei); Psychopath

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 45 Days: May 6th, 2025)

"So what you are telling me is that your welcome here was less than polite?" asked an amused Shino Asada as she continued to try to understand the enigma of the Albanian, the assassin that had been hired to kill her as the two sat in the penthouse of the Sasebo Watermark Hotel, conversing over tea. As she asked that, she heard a coo-ing sound, almost like that of a bird, as a blue eyed woman emerged from one of the other rooms. Shino tried not to stare at the woman's defining feature, a finely-coifed mane of blue hair.

That man, known in his trade as a master sniper with the business name of the Albanian, smiled winsomely, responding in cultured Japanese that Shino could not discern from that of a native speaker. "Oh, one might say that my welcoming committee tried to treat my lady most poorly, though they did at least provide some small amusement while I waited for my luggage to arrive." A look back towards the blue-haired woman, the twitch of the lips, spoke of some irony as the man sipped his Asram tea.

* * *

(Zero Hour Minus 1 Month: Arrun City)

"So. In addition to you and I, love..." [PoH] had to suppress a cringe at that, but he needed the woman, and this was the price he had to pay for having put it in the crazy. "[Viper], [Guile O Tine], [Peru], and [Lucy Fur] are here, meaning that for the moment, we need to assume that everyone else didn't come with us?"

[Hellebrone] rolled over in his lap, smiling sweetly. "Yeah. Of the rest, I know [Ghoul] and [Catherine] got themselves handed over to an asylum, while the rest, well, let's just say that they are trying to recreate our fun times in SAO. The five of us found that old hat, and came looking for you instead. Why?"

"All hail merciful Azathoth that Ghoul didn't come through with us. I mean, I've been responsible for the deaths of hundreds, and he creeps me right the fuck out." spoke Cassals vehemently.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 35 Days: April 26rd, 2025, Outside Sasebo International Airport)

"I do say, our ride is just a bit late in coming, isn't it, fair lady?" asked an obvious foreigner as he gently held the hand of a young woman near his age. His equipment would be coming through shortly, though he needed to be sure that the officials did not mishandle THAT one case.

The antique cello case did in fact contain a cello, one of the few that had been linked to Guiseppe Guarneri. The fact that it contained another European product, one distinctly banned by law in Japan, was not too much of a problem for the young-looking man. By arranging an identity for himself as a musician of note in Paris, he was able to arrange for antique cases that 'might be damaged' by too rough handling; the scanners would show only his cello, and not its more lethal cargo.

Oh certainly, he could not ship it with the .50 caliber ammunition it would need, but for that he had other contacts available worldwide; the Covenant of Thorns had a very adept logistics department hired through an array of double-blinds. He would be in, find his target, deal with said target to his employer's satisfaction, and then return to his home in Thailand, where no doubt his thieves-in-law would have some other issue to alleviate his boredom.

The young lady next to him tensed up, and his attention returned to the here and now with a number of unsavory thugs walking in to the bar the two had been waiting in. They immediately noticed his lady, and loosed a vocal assault on the two, starting with commentary on the man's ancestry, mating habits, and likely diet, before moving on to the woman, mostly concerning how they would like to show her a good time.

The two had by that time had enough, but the man never showed irritation, did not allow their abuse of vocabulary to anger him. Instead, he paid the tab, leaving a nice tip for the bartender who had called the airport's security. The two left then, heading around a blind corner, an apparent mistake. "You know man, you could save yourself a lot of pain, and just leave that nice young thing here. We won't hurt her, we promise." said the leader of the hooligans.

A quick look was shared between the two, before a somewhat twisted smirk came to the woman's face. "Are you quite sure, Eirn?" asked he, before the woman nodded, and as he departed, he said, "Try not to make too much of a fuss, please."

The men licked their lips, not expecting to have such a prize simply handed to them. As their hands reached out towards the young woman, she sighed and said, "He was talking to me, you nimrods." One of the gang saw something shift in a way that seemed _wrong_ , but before he could figure it out, the woman exploded into a blur of action.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 36 Days: April 27th, 2025, Asada Residence)

"For the massacre at the airport, chief, do you have any suspects in the deaths of these twelve men?"

Shino simply sighed as she watched the news that morning; several stupid criminals had somehow managed to mug a monster. She had already seen the video of the first person to view the carnage. It had made the person the most viewed in Japan that day, a fleeting little bit of fame for someone trying to profit off of a murder scene. Several of the gangsters were half the men they used to be. The fact the blood splatter made it look like someone had painted the walls crimson caused it to look like a bad horror movie set. The human body simply didn't have that much blood to spread, did it?

She shook her head as her phone rang; putting it to her ear, she heard Endou's alto tone in a manner she never thought she'd hear: Concern for another human being. "Shino, we've got a problem. They just found one of the SAO Returnees hung off of the school he'd been reassigned to after the attack."

Asada Shino's eyes closed quickly; she did not want to think of even more killing this early in the morning. "Did he commit suicide?" she asked, hoping that was the case; the stress could have gotten just a little too much for him.

The response took her worst fear for the situation and caused it to spiral down the drain. "No. Whoever put him there tortured him first, and they stapled a note to him..." Endou caught herself, but the damage was done.

Shino's first thought went to Tono's Yakuza group, then to the Reds, but remembered the former had gone to ground while the latter were being actively hunted by the police. Both groups had more than their quota of mental midgets, but this was too much. "What was on the note?" she asked.

Endou hesitated a bit, before spouting out, "It said, 'Who Is Sinon?' Do you think that whoever killed him mistook you for a student there?"

Shino blew out a hard breath, before saying with a quiver in her voice, "If so, then whoever did this? They don't deserve to die easily."

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 36 Days: April 27th, 2025, Shirotaka Household)

The day started off going straight to hell for Shirotaka Nanami. It had been almost a week since the Attack on the Returnee School. Enough ammunition had been used there to render the buildings better off demolished. Most of the teachers were dead or hospitalized, wiring, walls, floors had been shot up, grenades discharged, and enough high explosive left behind that it was less costly just to demolish the buildings to be safe.

She had snuck in two days beforehand to retrieve the rest of [Death Gun]'s equipment; not only might the assorted weaponry and armor be needed later, but it might have led investigators to the fact Nanami had not told the entire truth about her meeting with the vigilante, questions that might have gone in a singularly uncomfortable direction.

She had stashed it all in one of the dock houses that had been left silent when its owning company went belly-up, but Nanami knew that was only a temporary solution; she was going to need to contact Shino soon so the other teen could collect her gear.

Then she heard about one of her former school-mates being killed.

A call to Roberto later to check on his safety, a quick peek to the online status of her fellow survivors, and they found out just what had been done to the victim. Between them, they found out who went to which schools, how they could arrange traveling in groups for safety. The beginning of an 'Us Against Them' mentality began to build up among their number, Nanami among them.

She called Shino then. She needed to know the other teen was safe, and she needed to set up arrangements with her in case something happened to one of them. Nanami had accepted Shino as a sister in arms, and she had few enough of those left to her now. They arranged to meet the next day in one of the nearby malls.

Just after she had gotten off the phone with Shino, the Moenator (as some of the 'wits' online had called her after _that_ video had gone viral; the news helis had flown close enough to pick out the crack in her old goggles) had another call come in. 'Oh hell, what this time.' She picked up, let out a forced breath, and asked, "Yes, this is the Shirotaka household, can I help you?"

* * *

(Sasebo Naval Base)

"This is Kikouka, 'Major'." Roberto's one jest about an anime cyborg had come back to bite Nanami squarely on her slightly robotic backside. "He wants to allow you to use the training program he's set up as some small recompense for rescuing him during the incident." He held the black helmet in his hands, smiling sweetly as he did. Having that waste of humanity owing him a favor in turn had been amusing, to say the least, and he planned on using it for all he was worth.

After he matured a few of the digital minds to a more advanced age, he fully intended on getting Sugou to test them out in as Darwinian an environment as he could; his protege had earned him that by saving the warden's life both from the terrorists, and from his own assistant. Finding out from Nanami that Sugou had been sold out to the communists had been absolute comedy gold, never mind the fact the teen had been covering for someone else without his knowledge.

Now, he would be able to get his own personal monster trained in battle for him, and weed out those digital minds that would be ill-suited to Kikouka's purposes. Combined with the EMOM project receiving an infusion of resources due to Nanami's unintended publicity meant that he would be able to help Japan out, more than he had ever hoped to be able to.

* * *

(Shirotaka Household)

After hanging up with Kikouka, Nanami knew she would use that training to the highest degree possible. If she had any training before the 'incident' as the colonel put it, she could have saved more lives, could have struck faster and harder. Part of her was somewhat disturbed by the way she was turning into a weapon, a military asset.

The adrenal rush on the other hand was second to none, and she wondered if that was how Shino had gotten started on her path. Her thoughts on that were interrupted by the phone ringing once more; picking it up, she answered, "Yes?"

"Hello, little White Hawk. I've been waiting to call you. We have so much to go over from the Death Game, so many fun times to relive." The shrill tenor voice chilled Nanami's heart; she had thought him permanently committed in a mental ward. Her grip on the phone in her hand tightened, slightly deforming the plastic as she listened to that man, that voice... She had been one of the witnesses that had helped put him away after SAO, and now he was out. "Don't worry, pet. I heard about the rest of my guildmates, about how you got a few paper cuts. Arguile isn't here to save you this time, I'll be happy to meet you soon." crooned the voice with false camaraderie before Nanami crushed the phone.

"No... Not again. Not after that." She shivered slightly, her hand brushing across a broken piece of plastic. Looking down, Nanami glared at it, before her eyes narrowed. "The killing... Oh God no. He's not after Sinon, he's after me." Running to the landline, she started making a number of calls. Sinon, Roberto, the Twins, all of them needed to know. [Ghoul] had somehow conned his way free.

* * *

(Rooftop across from Shirotaka Residence)

"Well, that was MOST informative." purred the blond-haired man sitting on the rooftop, putting the laser microphone away. Two of Sinon's attacks had one thing in common, a certain maimed no more girl who had more resourcefulness than any could have guessed. He tapped in several spellings of Ghoul and crossreferenced with SAO players.

He came up with... '[Laughing Coffin]. I should have guessed. Well, this should be a simple case of follow the bodies until I find Sinon.'

* * *

(Streets of Sasebo)

Shino had been walking to the grocery store to do a little shopping. Then she felt a pinch in her neck from an airgun dart. As she fell and her vision blurred, she saw a thin, short skinhead walking near her. "Don't worry, Asada. We only have a few questions about Sinon for you."


	23. 3-3: Predator

This time's inspirational work? Hellsing Abridged. I apologize in advance if parts go ten kinds of stupid and/or silly, TFS kind of does that. To everything.

* * *

Zero Hour: The Albanian(Drei); Predator

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 45 Days: May 6th, 2025)

The Albanian looked a bit pensive as he looked to the young woman before him. "I guess I should just come out and say it, he's the reason I put [Sinon], [Death Gun], and you together, Miss Asada. That aptly named little troglodyte of a man took you captive for a day. While the recording he and his employers took made for an interesting draw from 'How To Trick Your Allies And Feed Them'... Ahem." The cultured man coughed to deflate some of his apparent embarrassment, before looking back into Shino's eyes carefully. "Did [Ghoul] lay hands upon you in a rather less than professional manner during the time he had you?"

Shino sat back in her chair stiffly. "If he did, then it was while I was unconscious, and with his minders being right there with him, I find that rather unlikely. As for them, they were all business where it concerned me. On the other hand, the business side of it _hurt_ worse than anything I'd been through before." She smiled bitterly before setting her teacup down, pushing the saucer gently away. "It made what happened next all the sweeter."

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 37 Days: April 28th, 2025, Arida Meat Packing Plant)

As Shino slowly woke up from her chemically-induced nap, the scent of blood filled the air, and as her eyes opened slowly, the thin haze of whatever drug that dart had been coated with fought her for awareness. The first thing she felt was cold, nipping all the way up and down her body, and the ache of the chain her arms were suspended from digging into her wrists.

"Ahh, I see Sleeping Beauty is finally up, I thought I was going to have to give her a kiss." said the poisonous voice of the short man who had shot her. She tried turning to see him, but he had kept behind her, out of the line of sight.

A two finger punch to one kidney left Shino gasping in agony, eyes wide open too soon, as all the light that her captors had blazing down at her left stars in her eyes even after she closed them. A shin made contact with her ribs hard enough to leave her coughing; if she hadn't been suspended in mid air, a few ribs likely would have broken from the force.

The loathsome little manifestation of hate quickly stepped forward and gently took hold of her foot before pressing inward between two of the bones, drawing a scream from Shino. Apparently, that had been enough pain for the moment, because another man, older-sounding, spoke up. "Asada Shino, I am so sorry for the necessity of this, but I am afraid the situation demands it. I need to know who Sinon is, and what that monstrous man has as connection to you that he would be near you no less than twice so far, let alone save you."

It took Shino a second to put that a face to that voice; he had been one of Tono's underlings, the man who had sent the SRAIGear from that syndicate to her. For some reason, he had not put all the puzzle pieces together, but she was going to need to be careful. A bit more hesitation, and she felt that hand dig between the shoulder muscles, eliciting another cry from her. "Well?" asked the underling, who was sounding fairly impatient. "The longer you take to answer, the more pain I let Ghoul inflict, and the less use you become to me."

Another punch, this time to her stomach, brought out a groan of pain from her before she heard Ghoul step back. Biting down on one of her gunmetal hair decorations, something new from Nanami, she then begged, "Please, wait. I'll tell you what I know... And what I think is true about Sinon." The man ordered his attack dog back, and asked, "And what is this about Death Gun, while we're at it."

Taking a few deep breaths that felt like fire flowing through her lungs, she said, "Sinon is Death Gun. Death Gun is not Sinon, though. Not just Sinon, that is." Asada Shino coughed a few times to earn herself a little more time before the beatings would continue; she needed to draw this out, to give Nanami time to follow her beacon. No doubt this Ghoul and his boss had ditched her phone, but leaving the hair decs on had been a mistake on their part.

"Then who is Death Gun?" asked the man, giving her a bit more precious time to play with.

"Death Gun isn't a who. It's a what. It's what happens every time [Laughing Coffin] left a grieving friend behind, murdered someone with people who cared for them. Death Gun is an organization, dedicated to hunting Laughing Coffin and those like them. Death Gun is a philosophy, a way of life, aiming those with a need for vengeance at targets worthy of it."

"In short, sir, Death Gun is meant to be retribution given form and function, given awful life."

* * *

(Asada Household)

When Shino had not shown up for their planned meeting to figure out what to do concerning the rest of her gear, Nanami had done understandably well, which is to say that her fears of Ghoul coming for one of them had played out. First she called Shino's cellphone, getting a Phone Not On notice. Next, Nanami headed to Shino's house, only to find no one home. She was considering calling Kikouka and having him call down the wrath of an almighty God for her, but before that could happen, the doorbell went off.

Trying to find a hiding spot in the tight apartment had worked as well as one might expect it to with Shino's proliferating gun cases underneath the bed, apparently multiplying like dust bunnies. The noise carried outside the door, and as she turned, Nanami came face to face with Shirou Endou walking in, fist cocked back. That was when the beacon went off.

The loud beeping sound was what stood in the way of Endou starting a brawl that she would have lost badly. Nanami's cellphone picked it up quickly, the signal was not far away, a freshly renovated meat packing plant near one of the train routes. "I think Shino's been kidnapped." said the cyborg by way of explanation, before blurting out, "And it's my fault."

"OK there, take slow calming breaths, talk it out a little at a time, miss..." Endou's mind clicked in place as she saw the visor, and had to take her own advice. "What do you mean Shino's been kidnapped, anyway? What would anyone want with her?" She did not know if Nanami knew, she didn't want to burn Shino's secrets if she didn't have to.

"I gave her a rescue beacon after the... unpleasantness at the Returnee School. I thought it might help her fear a bit, she seemed afraid after her near miss with the Heartbreaker. Now one of my old 'friends' is out of a mental hospital, and he... Oh hell." She did not know if Endou knew, she didn't want to burn Shino's secrets if she didn't have to.

As the two left the apartment, Nanami stated, "I think I'm going to need to take a detour. One moment..." Picking the phone back up, she dialed a number she never expected to call. "Sasuke-san, a bit of a situation has come up. Can you take me to..." She quickly scanned her phone using her AMUSphere, "The old Technodyne plant? Yes, I know it's your day off. This may be a matter of life or death. One of the Lieutenant Colonel's old side projects? He's out of the asylum, and he's out for blood. He needs to be stopped."

Meanwhile, Endou was simply sitting to one side, listening as Nanami continued to rattle off stops they would need to make. "You let her get hurt, and you'll be answering to me, cyborg super-soldier or not." said she, a lame threat if she had ever heard one. The teenager with the cunning of a devil had spotted the beacon on the map, and had listened in on Nanami. She could get to the Technodyne plant without needing to wait for a ride. Taking her leave, she kickstarted her big birthday present, a motorcycle.

* * *

(Closed Technodyne Plant)

Endou had been careful as she entered the plant, really a small warehouse with a few bolted shafts for heavy tools. She had left the motorcycle a block away, no need to leave a sign out front that the building was occupied by a particularly nosy soul.

She had known from Shino's commentary about the cyborg that Nanami could kick ass with the best of them; Endou simply didn't trust the naive-seeming girl. Instead, she needed to find what was so important to the younger teen that she would stop here first. Fortunately, Endou did not need to sift through piles of junk, when Technodyne had been bought out, the new owners had cleaned up admirably, leaving only bolted-down tables. Atop one of them were three duffel bags, "Jackpot." She felt a bit of shock as she opened one of the bags to find the steel mask that had been associated with Death Gun, 'She knows? Then why the subterfuge on the one end, and loose lips on the other?'

The older teen then felt a grip like a vise at the back of her neck. A hardened voice that couldn't have been the same one as the girl in the apartment spat out, "Drop the mask, and I might not squeeze your head like a pimple." The other girl had been silent as death, Endou had never heard Nanami enter or sneak up on her.

A baritone voice came from just inside the door musing, "I think what we have here is a failure to communicate." Endou could just see the man from the uncomfortable angle she was held at. He looked handsome but entirely too regulation, like some tin soldier in need of some oil. Then Endou remembered the other metal soldier in the room, and said, "I can explain. Please, just take your hand off my neck." When the other teen didn't, even pushed a little, Endou plaintively asked, "Please?"

The Moenator squeezed slightly before releasing the teenager to try to put the fear of Shirotaka into her. "You have one minute. Talk." Turning around, Endou saw the younger teenager's eyes narrowed dangerously into slits, as if the slightest wrong move, the incorrect wording might result in a demonstration of the cyborg's strength.

"You know who Sinon is then?" asked Endou vaguely as she pointed to the mask, an inquiring glance towards the other three duffels. "'He' wouldn't let an innocent die, would he?" She glanced towards the soldier, then back to Nanami, blinking thrice. "On the other hand, he..." jerking her thumb towards the Captain, "doesn't know, does he? Well, Sinon isn't here for the rescue right now, is he?"

Nanami closed her eyes, thinking on the situation. "What do you have in mind?"

* * *

(Arida Meat Packing Plant)

"So, Miss Shino, what you are telling me is that Sinon did not kill Shinkawa Kyoji? That Tono's entire campaign against Sinon is predicated on bad information?" The questioner smiled to himself, the girl was an unexpected gold mine of information. Oh, she had held up a bit when answered some questions, trying to protect Kyoji's memory in his grandfather's mind. Ghoul had broken her resistance.

After all, when he dimmed the lights so that she could see the video of herself using a pair of scissors to end the student that had maimed Shirotaka Nanami, she paused, turning away as if ashamed of what she had done. Shino had run from the police, stayed quiet on the entire subject. If he had not seen her at Kyoji's funeral, he never would have connected the two together. He still suspected Shino knew more than she was letting on. She had however gone from being a disposable torture dummy used to incite Sinon to stupidity, to a potential resource on the same level as Ghoul. She had killed early, and now he knew she had the right stuff for the future of the organization.

That the organization would be without Tono in the near future was a necessary sacrifice. The old man was bringing far too much heat down upon them, it was far past time for him to be retired. He had been recording the vocals to this off-site on the chance that he might get the information he needed to get Sinon and show the old man up in front of the Oyabun, but instead he might be able to use this scared girl in front of him instead.

"Yes sir... Kyoji... He couldn't kill me..." The girl was looking pale, but he had held Ghoul back. Nothing too permanent had been done to her, though she would be in pain for days. Indeed, he had many things in mind for her now. "He couldn't kill me, and Souichi... He... The needle, into his eye..." Jackpot. "And then... That one came, shot them down, one by one... I only saw the six where I was, but I heard the rest of the gunfire... I couldn't do anything..."

The interrogator smiled to himself. Absolutely perfect, she had set herself up for this. "And if you could have done something?" he asked, thinking he knew the answer.

"I would have killed every last one of them, for what they did to the other students, to Kyoji... To me." said Shino, hoping she wasn't selling this too far. She needed to play up her aversion to firearms, to distance herself from her alter ego. She had doubted she would make it out of the meat packing plant in one piece, but now she allowed herself the small hope she had pulled one over on them. The fact she had ended three lives that they knew about in the Death Game complicated everything.

"And what if I told you that you already had something that would allow you to act, to beat your fear of guns?" asked the man.

A slow look of comprehension came to her face as she answered, "That helmet? But I thought that was someone's cruel joke, a way of telling me to go off myself."

At that, the made man could only put his face in the palm of his hand. "Really. Don't tell me. You weren't told that helmet would help you fight your fears?" The man was incredulous, Tono needed to go _soon_. After this amount of time, Shino could already have been a useful servant for the Yakuza, judging from the changes in Ghoul in the short time he had one of the helmets on in the psych ward. "Well, the time for that has passed. It's time for us to help you set aside your fears, Asada-sama, as some small recompense for what we've made you go through here today." The man smiled at her, as he snapped his fingers.

Shino had no idea what to expect, what kind of 'reward' they were going to give her (and how to dodge out of it), until she felt her hair being pulled back, the helmet slid into place. "Don't worry. I've been told that this will also help you forget the pain that we've given you. Sweet dreams." spoke the man, before the switch turned on, and her mind erupted into agony, every nerve in her body seeming to fire off at once.

* * *

(Grave of Guns Online)

Was it a second? A minute? Hours? After what seemed to be an eternity of agony to Asada Shino, the pain began to shift, concentrating on the top and sides of her head (leaving her with a splitting migraine) and her spine along her backside. She tried to think to herself, 'What good could all this pain be for breaking someone's phobias? This should only make it worse...' Then the images started to appear.

It looked as if someone had broken a window, and the rotating pieces of shattered glass were showing parts of her life from her point of view, but distorted. The assault at the post office, the Death Game, all of the killings, and all the thoughts on it like slivers, warping ever-so-slightly as they went. She wondered what they were, until her 'eyes' alighted on the beginning of a few odd habits for her. Why did she wax the top of her ears? Why had she never smiled widely? Warnings to control her anger by her mother, by her grandparents showed themselves, before warping slightly, and Shino thought to herself, 'No. What the hell is this?'

The pain intensified as she felt phantasmal twitching where the pain was, 'eyes' narrowing further as she picked out the moments she loved the most of her life, her time with her grandparents before the incident at the post office. She then saw it twist, turn into something less happy, something she knew not to be true, and her eyes flared with rage. She knew, but she didn't know how long that would last.

The thought she might lose who she was filled her with fear, with hate. Asada Shino thought to herself, "They've done this to those people in the asylums... All of Laughing Coffin's victims this way... Oh sweet merciful... If a God exists in Heaven, please, I beg of you, save me!"

* * *

(Arida Meat Packing Plant)

The lights had been toned down to a more comfortable level, and the gumi had taken their goggles off, glad that was done with. Oh, Ghoul would bring others here to draw out Sinon, but this one would live, likely becoming one of them eventually. The times were changing, and they needed the manpower, especially after Sinon had bled so many of them dry. After all, Ghoul may not quite have been one of the boys, but the young man was already Made since he had been dragged back from the virtual prison.

When the sentries that had been posted up high noted a vehicle inbound, they radioed it in to the other gumi, just simple good sense after all the mayhem that Sinon had caused.

The car simply passed by the first time around, making the sentries think it might have been a false alarm, just some random moron getting lost. It enabled the SAOvivor in the car to spot the three main targets Endou had picked out from the building blueprints: The power transformers, the phone and internet lines, and the backup generator. She also picked out two sentries.

When a single girl had come around a second time, the Yakuza had become far more suspicious, but by then it had been too late. Endou had drawn out the information needed; the plant was under renovation for a new owner, but had far more power usage than it should have had, along with full internet hookup. This was the place Shino was being held.

Nanami was glad that she had sent the Captain to the police with Endou in tow. It got the troublesome woman out of her hair, it ensured that the Captain would not get in trouble for this, and guaranteed she would be able to make a raid solo without blowing Sinon's cover. If she could mulch terrorists by the dozen, Yakuza could not be harder.

The sentries were non-plussed by seeing a girl running towards the entrance, but their rifles were quickly aimed on her. To say they had not expected someone to be able to jump to roof level like some video game hero would be an understatement. To say that going from roof to pavement would be painful? Very much likewise, but they did scream loudly on their way down, so they did have that going for them.

The Yakuza inside were getting ready to pack up when the alarm was raised. The men detailed to Shino looked over to their boss, who began barking orders to all and sundry, before saying, "Well, Ghoul, it looks like you get to earn your larger paycheck after all." That was when they felt the building shake from three explosions, one after the other, as the grenades Nanami had thrown went off and the lights went out..

The cyborg smiled, all three had gone where she had needed them to, though the explosion from the generator's fuel line being severed would leave a problem for any fire crews. Picking up her slab from the side of the main building, she slammed it into the front door like a battering ram, caving it in. Moving it back into position to protect herself, she expected gunfire to head her way. She had not expected to hear, "Well, hello, I was expecting Sinon, but I get you instead, Nanami. I guess I can not complain too much, I want you too."

"Judas. I've come to gut you, motherfucker." spat the girl in an uncharacteristic bit of profanity.

* * *

(Grave of Guns... Offline?)

The first hint Shino had that something was going on outside the virtual realm she found herself in was some of the memories, the ones she knew had been played with, losing the fog over them as the agony began to fade. Splinters melded together as if water, as the pane of mental glass worked its way back together. 'Are they done screwing with mind?' she hoped as she looked over what might be the digital display of her mind or something else entirely.

She began to see so much detail in everything, hear it all, every sense firing as if awakening from slumber as she viewed the pane make itself whole, a residual effect of the backups built into the helmet for safety. No one had wanted a repeat of SAO, not even Sugou Nobuyuki.

As the motes of light around her began to dim, her eyes picked up that earliest memory she had 'seen', the accident that had almost killed her, that had claimed her father. She saw the crimson streamer fly before the truck hit, that little bit of red that crossed like so many she had caused. 'Is this real? Am I remembering what really happened, or is this just one more sick joke?' She felt something flatten on the top of her head, something twitch along her spine as she screamed as everything went red...

Shino's eyes opened, a blazing hot animal rage taking over.

* * *

(The Butchering Chamber)

The residual pain of Ghoul working her over for the better part of three hours was nothing compared to the agony she had felt from that helmet, but Asada Shino quickly tensed different muscle groups in turn; it wouldn't do for her to find out that her body wouldn't work like she needed it to after the fact.

"Fuck! Check on the girl, I don't know what happens if a SRAIGear loses power when it's being worn!" shouted the interrogator as the emergency lighting came on and then immediately failed with the generator's destruction. Only the battery-powered lights on the exit signs worked, casting very faint light on the situation. One of the men slowly walked her way, almost into where she had been hanging, only to look up into a pair of ever-so-faintly glowing red slits. A pair of toned thighs wrapped around his head and turned too fast.

The screaming had suddenly stopped, the girl had gone silent when a single 'CRACK!' resounded through the air. The sound of metal on metal faintly hit the ears of the men in the room; on the off chance Sinon had showed up, the sub-boss looking to increase his standing at Tono's expense had expected that fifteen fully-aware men with sub-machine guns would be enough to put an end to the killing spree.

Whoops.

Some of the men whipped out their cellphones, hoping to use the light to figure out just what the hell was going on. They could catch some slight bit of movement, and one man pulled his gun up to fire at it, only to see chains waving in the air where his bullets went.

She could see it, the view from the exit and cellphone lights seeming like twilight to her, the time of day she liked most, at the edge of day and night. She could hear it, the fumbling around of fourteen men as they tried to define what was happening, the sweet silence of the one she had twisted the neck of when he had ventured too close to her hanging form as she pulled herself up. She could smell it, the fear-sweat, mixing with cheap cologne and animal blood, tickling the back of her throat. She could feel it, the cool breeze against her skin, the scant vibration of footsteps on concrete.

She could just taste it, the sweetest taste of all: A predatory anticipation of the prey, left all the tools she would ever need. Ghoul had been a fool not to lock up his twisted carving slash acupuncture kit when her distraction had arrived.

These ones did not make the same mistake the terrorists had; they always moved in groups of at least three, didn't make excessive noise, they moved as men who had worked together for years.

They made the same amusing mistake the terrorists had; assuming they were in a gangster drama, when they were instead the victims in a horror flick.

Two would always die too quickly to give any kind of an alarm, a spike through the brain, a severed spine, a knife in the lungs. The last, she let squirm, let scream to draw their gunfire to where she had been a moment before. Dancing upon the edge of life and death, Shino found herself enjoying the hunt.

It had ended far too soon. She had saved the man who ordered her brought here, ordered the torture, demanded that fucking helmet be put on her, for last. When he had seen the red eyes, he had drawn his pistol, trying to shoot her, but she could feel it, know which way to move, how to let the bullets just pass by her.

The man had cheated her of her prize. He saved the last bullet for himself. Strangely desiring more, she sauntered towards where she could still hear gunfire. "Oh, Ghoul... Not nice of you to leave me here all alone."

* * *

(The Foyer)

Nanami had dreamed of this day ever since her guildmate Jude, her friend, her closest confidant, had turned on her, killed the rest of her first guild. This Judas might as well have taken a bite out of her heart, should have ended her, but he had taken his time, had boasted about the act, how his real friends had called him Ghoul for his propensity to eat the guilds he served from within, like a cancer. If he had just shut up until after the deed was done, she would have died, but Arguile had saved her from this monster in man's clothing.

She never would have expected the man to defeat her again, and do so convincingly.

Ghoul had never been that fast before, that aware of everything going on about him, making her miss. She had been so intent on killing the bane of her existence that she did not count how many shots from the stolen pistol she had expended, nor had she thought anything about closing with the man in order to address the sudden uselessness of her firearm. She had not counted on Ghoul not going for the route everyone else she had fought since regaining her limbs had, instead he went for what kept them working instead. While she had been worrying about the gun in the teen's left hand, his right held the knife the man had used to cut the exposed lines coming out of the FMG.

Now, he slid the back side of the knife along her harness, finding out what was armored, what was not. "It's a real shame, Nanami. If you had joined me back then? Today we'd be killing all over Japan, not with both of us under the thumb of our bosses." Grinning like a fiend, he leaned in to whisper, "Not that it matters too much, you're lucky that my real master actually wants you in his service. The really fun part about it? You know the helmet they put on me to keep me from doing any damage? I kept it. It's even got your name written on it, just for you!" Pulling back, he chuckled as he rubbed his bald head, "Soon, we'll be together, doing what we should have been doing in the first place, and nothing, not even Sinon, will get between us ever again."

Maybe it was intuition, maybe just a nervous twitch, but he turned enough where his hand intercepted the thrown scalpel where his head had been a moment before. Shrieking as he dropped his pistol, he caught the girl he had been tormenting earlier out of the corner of his eye, and rolled out of the way of several thrown spikes. Coming back to his feet in the same motion, he glared at the girl clad more in blood than any clothing.

"Oh, Ghoul." purred Sinon as she didn't walk, but sauntered into the room, lacking the chains around her wrists, and with more spikes in hand. Grinning, "I bet you say that to every girl you hit on." Her hands flicked forward as she went into a full run towards Ghoul, sending more sharp implements his way.

"You have got to be shitting me!" he screamed, before ripping the scalpel out. Unlike pretty much everyone Sinon had faced to that point, Ghoul knew the use of the better part of valor; he threw his knife at Nanami, fully expecting Sinon to do something dumb to save the other teenager, but turning to run in case she didn't. Reading Sinon's exploits saved his life, as Asada Shino threw something, the case she had been carrying, _his_ case, in its path. It would be at least a couple of seconds before Sinon would be able to get to him, and he spent them doing the smart thing by running for the exit.

* * *

(Outside Side Entrance)

"FUCK!" screamed the bald teen as he wrapped his hand, well on his way to the motorcycle he had stolen the first day he had been free. His left hand had to cross over to his pocket for the keys, but so very soon, he would be out of here, free, and report to Tono. Asada Shino was going to have the wrath of a very pissed off minor don headed her way shortly, and he hoped Tono would be kind enough to let him watch.

"You know, a young man such as yourself should not use such foul, foul language. It is so hideously impolite." spoke a blue-eyed blond dressed in an Armani business suit approaching from the parking lot, holding something akin to a conductor's baton in his left hand and smiling as he closed with the young psychopath.

Ghoul dropped the keys, and turned to the man, angrily shouting, "Oh yeah? Why don't you go fuck yourself, you Draco Malfoy-looking bitch?" He kicked his keys back up to his one working hand in time to hear some kind of bullshit gobbledygook, what was this, Mental Midget Week in Sasebo?

Shortly thereafter, Ghoul's mortal remains were left in an efficient little pile, aside from the blood which the man had used to paint some graffiti in place. "Actually, you little gutter snipe, I have no need to do that. I get more in a night than you likely got in your entire life." The Albanian simply shook his head and sighed sadly at the mess he had left. "And look, you actually dragged me down to your level."

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 45 Days: May 6th, 2025: Watermark Hotel Sasebo)

Asada Shino and the Albanian looked at each other as the man recounted his part in that encounter, both trying hard to keep the grins from spreading. The two failed, bursting into ribald laughter.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 37 Days: April 28th, 2025, Outside Arida Meat Packing Plant)

Shino had stayed behind to help Nanami, the two had apparently been worried for the other after seeing the state the other was in. They both said, deadpan, "You look like hell." after they had caught a breath. Heading outside, the patch Nanami had done had enabled her to at least limp, so that she could call for help from those she could trust.

"Well, you don't see that every day." said Shino while carrying Nanami; she was lighter than she appeared, but still heavy enough where she was straining with the effort.

They had found Ghoul's mortal remains when calling for pickup. In addition to his neatly-sliced corpse, Ghoul's blood had been arranged on the wall carefully in English calligraphy, "Hello, Sinon."

"Have you already figured a way to explain this one away to your boss, Nana-chan?" asked the exhausted teen.

"To be honest, I have no fucking clue in the world, Shinon-chan." said the other exhausted teen.

* * *

The rest of this gaiden story was dedicated to the memory of Monty Oum, whose series led me to this site, and writing fanfiction in general as a result. This chapter was originally posted the day after he passed.


	24. 3-4: Sniper Duel

For all that Sinon is a sniper in canon, she hasn't had much of a chance to become one in side stories. Even so, this time, it's...

* * *

Zero Hour: The Albanian(Vier); Sniper Duel

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 45 Days: May 6th, 2025)

"So. There is this one thing bothering me, Miss Asada." The assassin steepled his fingers together, resting his chin upon his hands. "You never did tell me how you found out I was hunting you. When did you figure out someone was on your trail?"

Leaning back in her chair, Asada Shino closed her eyes. "In all honest truth, I did not figure out you were hunting me until a week ago." This drew a quirked eyebrow from the genteel murderer as Shino continued, "After the mess at the packing plant, Tono detailed one of his men to keep an eye on me, he did not want me letting any more information free to all and sundry. If it had looked like someone was about to capture me, that gumi was ordered to kill me." An amused smile crossed the teenager's lips.

That drew a look of mild distaste to the handsome man's face. "And what did that have to do with figuring out I was following you?"

The teenager answered, "Because when I noticed him, my nose picked out one person with the scent of a hard smoker and drinker, and another man that smelled of sunflowers nearby, there were just the two of you in that subway tunnel."

The Albanian's eyes narrowed dangerously, and said, "I know I limit myself in that regard, it shouldn't have left a scent on me. And sunflowers..." His eyes widened, and a small smile crept across his lips as comprehension came to him. "Sunflowers do not smell of anything. Clever, clever girl."

"Exactly. The lack of a discernible scent was what made me aware of you. It takes certain diets and deodorants to keep the human body from producing a scent. Combined with picking out whatever should be in an area, and you might as well have been waving a big red sign saying, 'Killer Here.'"

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 38 Days: April 29th, 2025)

Asada Shino, [Sinon], was still feeling more than a bit under the weather. It had been 24 hours since Ghoul had unleashed his pain on her, since his boss had that helmet placed on her head. She was still uncertain as to what damage that might have done to her mind; she had made a very discreet inquiry with Endou if that was to be expected with the use of the helmets, or if something else was going on.

She had come to view Ghoul as a simple unfortunate soul, one who might have gotten better if he hadn't been unlucky enough to have whatever conditioning the helmet might have placed on him. Oh, if he had been with the rest of [Laughing Coffin] during the death game, she would have gunned him down without a second thought, but having faced the agony of a helmet causing her nerves to fire freely like that, to feel her memories being toyed with? Shino could not help but wonder if Ghoul was a murdering monster, or just another victim of Tono that had to be put down for others and his own good.

School had been absolute hell that day. The same predator's senses that had served her so very well against Tono's turncoats now made it impossible for her to ignore her classmates like she would have liked to. The one boy in class that didn't take a shower before school and tried to cover it with Maul Body Spray? She could smell every reeking scent, both that of his body and the spray he tried to cover it with; it took a heroic effort not to look as queasy as she felt. Anyone whispering in lunch, spreading gossip (no small amount of it about her, the bruises showed too easily)? She heard the entire cacophonic conversations. The unfiltered cigarettes of the one man waiting outside the gates... Well, the scent was awful, but at least it let her know she needed to be on her guard, the one plus side to her senses going haywire.

Thus, as Shino entered the subway tunnel to wait for her train home, she took a detour, trying to see just how closely her tail would follow, and bumped into an absolutely handsome European man carrying a cello case. As she gave her apologies, she looked at his face and noticed the tension there fade, the look of recognition disappear into an apologetic smile too easily. Instinctively, she took a sniff, and smelled very little from the man, just enough of the ozone stench from the train to make him mix in ever so slightly, even as the hard footsteps of her pursuer alerted her to another issue. "Please, do excuse me." said she, knowing instinctively that blond man was dangerous, a predator like her.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 45 Days: May 6th, 2025)

"So, I made you when we first met. Would you be so kind as to tell me when you made me?" Shino matched the Albanian's Gendo Pose, though it simply made her look cute; the teenager still did not bear the hardened look of a professional slayer of men. It inspired a smirk from the lips of the older assassin as the blue-haired woman Shino figured for his girlfriend brought a clay bottle over along with a pair of sake cups.

"Eirn, corrupting the youth again?" the man said with a bit of a laugh, even as he poured for both himself and Shino. "Just one shouldn't be too hard on you, Asada Shino. I've been told this is a kind of ritual amongst our kind that survive battle against one another." Shino took her cup and sipped gingerly, feeling the alcoholic burn running across her tongue. Her eyes bugged open widely, eliciting a nod from the two adults in the room, "Your first time?" A coughed, "Yessss..." was their answer.

As the Albanian reached for his cup, his girlfriend snatched it up and slammed the shot down, before grinning and handing him the shotglass she had been hiding in her off hand. "You always make it so very easy." said she, making like the cat that ate the canary.

Pouring again for himself, the Albanian shook his head. "Actually, it was your tail that gave you away." Shino looked to him in confusion, "It is good that you spared him, actually. I doubt Interpol would have found it too amusing if you had ended him while he was scouting out the Tono Syndicate for them." The teenager's nod seemed to indicate her agreement, even if she didn't fully understand.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 41 Days: May 2nd, 2025)

Agent Edogawa considered himself to have lousy luck.

He had been chasing Asada Shino for his apparent boss, Tono Issei. For some reason, Tono was afraid the girl might hand out more useful information if she was captured again, and took steps in order to deny up and comers the chance to use her as an information source.

Edogawa made sure to keep a close watch on the girl, but for an entirely different reason. Interpol had received a copy of the recording from one of their other assets; the ambitious sub-boss that had held her had a copy sent to a datastore for later retrieval. Interpol's agents had plucked the datastore clean, it had been a goldmine of information for them.

One small bit received implicated Asada Shino as Sinon. Though the sound was muffled enough that any decent lawyer would have been able to get a case built around that alone laughed out of court, it had sounded like the fifteen year old had earlier on. In addition to keeping Tono pleased so that he could continue his infiltration, Edogawa now needed to watch Shino for more health-related reasons due to a slight lead allergy. If Shino was indeed Sinon, then there was the torpedo Tono hired to be concerned about as well.

That side job for his true employers only became more complicated as he spotted the Albanian. Wanted in seven different countries for a wide variety of crimes, the Albanian generally rarely left his fellow Vory unless there was a decent chunk of change going towards it. He had spied the tense encounter the two of them had two days ago, filing it away under 'People I Can Rely On To Kill Each Other.'

He had been so intent on the Albanian's appearance this day he missed the sensation of air pressure building until it was too late. When he felt it, he fully expected to die, the pain was so awful. Something stayed the hand of his would-be killer, though, and instead he woke in the female bathroom an hour later, minus his wallet, cellphone, gun, and keys, a victim of a very stealthy mugger.

Sighing as she disposed of the gun and keys, Eirn kept the wallet and cellphone, tossing them to the Albanian as she passed by on her way outside. "This aught to prove so very interesting, Edogawa. What is your job this time?" The hitman managed a small smile before taking the next train. "Interpol is really going downhill these days if he was caught cold like that."

He had stuck around the meat packing plant for the sole reason that he had expected Sinon to show up; the Albanian's pride took a small hit when he found out that the killer had been there the entire time. The audio might not be enough evidence for a court of law, but an assassination is conducted on far looser constraints. He made a quick call to the Covenant corporate headquarters in San Paulo, just to be on the safe side, checking if they had any more information he should know.

Meanwhile, when Edogawa awoke and exited the stall, he found a very irate Asada Shino in front of him, she looked ready to end him there. Instead, the teenager had dropped the groggy agent with a kick to the groin before calling for the rail station's police. That had led to a series of embarrassing calls back and forth between his real boss and the local cops, while Shino slipped away.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 45 Days: May 6th, 2025)

Shino's bemused glance betrayed her thoughts. "I thought Interpol was supposed to be the best of the best, and that its undercover agents were supposed to go into deep cover at the drop of a hat. I'm..."

The older man came up with the right word, "Disappointed? Yes, as a general rule that is true, but I've dealt with Edogawa-chan before. He did burn both of us, though, so there is something to be concerned about. He bungles his way into success far more often than is safe for anyone in my field of work."

The Albanian sighed. "Of course, by that point, we both knew. I'd still like to know how you managed to figure out I was following you the first day." He looked to her, as if expecting an explanation.

"I caught your reflection on a pane of glass, if I hadn't picked you out from that, we wouldn't be here right now. As to how I got away, you were expecting to be following a somewhat mousy girl in glasses, not a glam-rock catgirl a few centimeters taller." Shino grinned wickedly, "I always carry a spare disguise when I might be expecting trouble, you passed right by me. It gave me the time to retrieve the rest of my gear." A chuckle left her lips, "After all, with Neko-Con going on, I kind of fit right in."

That garnered her a baritone rumble of laughter. "Oh no, it was more that I would have needed to get too close to you to ensure just your kill, and I didn't want to give you the opportunity for a repeat performance of what you did to The Heartbreaker."

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 43 Days: May 4th, 2025)

The two had been playing their game of cat and mouse for two days. In that time, Shino had come to some understanding of the hitman's game. By necessity it was boring most of the time, though brief moments of what could have ended the duel had in turn excited and frightened her, moreso than she had felt before.

So close to death, Asada Shino had come to find out she enjoyed the razor's edge, it made her feel alive.

Today, though, it would come to an end, and she knew how.

Wearing a black trenchcoat over her real camouflage, Shino entered a business complex with a white stone facade, carrying a Haliburton briefcase which had her toys, prepared for later use. The building was just shorter than the nearest one with a clean line of sight to the roof. She had planned for that; the few extra days she had to prepare would see her through.

The Albanian had seen the girl enter her building of choice, and smiled sadly. This one had been more entertaining than most of his previous marks since _That Man_ had found him, molded him to be more in the image of that august killer of killers. He knew how this would end, though; only in a very few cases was the high ground not ideal for a sniper. Sinon had chosen poorly, she would pay for it with her life.

He made his way quickly to the second to highest floor in the hotel; he then waited until he would have the sun at his back, while Sinon would catch all the glare, classic sniper positioning. Peeking quickly with his scope, he saw the white-covered form of his target; she blended in _almost_ perfectly with the facade. The hoodie and scarf prevented him from seeing her face, perhaps it was better that way.

The Albanian opened his cello case carefully, slipping the one lever that opened the case to the back. Sighing, he took the pieces of his anti-materiel rifle out, reassembling them by rote as he had done for all of his kills. Clearing the chamber and locking the magazine of .50 cal in place, he chambered one round. Slowly moving the rifle into position, he found his prey again, still in place. She was aiming too high and to the left of him, not a bad guess, but that was all it was.

Shaking his head, he turned his cellphone off, no need for any potential distraction (and as a result, missed the message that would have stopped him). The Albanian looked over his target one more time; he had a near-perfect scope shot lined up. Checking the (non-existent) wind, he adjusted for distance, held position, blew out a breath, and fired.

The bullet flew true to his intended path, flying into the glass of the Dragunov's scope, into and through it, before blowing through the other lens into the head of his target. Every head shot always seemed to take a different pattern, and he took a picture with the camera he had at hand, best to document everything. He doubted much would remain recognizable of Asada Shino's face on the left side as he finished taking his long-range photographs before disassembling his rifle; he would have to go over to the other building and verify her. Too much of the scarf was in the way for him to do so from where he was. Sighing at another job done, he turned his cellphone back on.

The message waiting for him as everything went online chilled him to the core. A stop-order had been issued on the job by none other than CT13 himself, sent fifteen seconds after he had turned the phone off; he had just missed it. Lesser men than himself might have burst into profanity at that; the Albanian closed his eyes and whispered a small prayer to a god he no longer really believed in, a man whos path he denied himself. Then he called CT13, to report the killing that would likely seal his fate.

 _That Man_ had sounded like a disappointed parent when he answered his phone. 'He already knows.' thought the Albanian, who was then told that since he missed the order through no fault of his own, he might as well go and verify the kill. CT13 also made sure to warn him to be very careful, and the Albanian wondered if he in turn was marching in front of a scoped view.

No bullets traversed through his frame as he made his way to the office building. His first thought was that it was oddly quiet for a Monday morning before he saw the last bits of construction debris; he had just painted a freshly renovated building red with his target. The front doors were not locked; he found that suspicious in and of itself as he entered, moving slowly to be sure no surprises awaited him.

When he spotted the first body, he spotted three red holes in the man's chest, no doubt put there by his killer. Progressing up the stairs, he found more dead bodies on the floor, and found himself wondering just how so many could have been killed in the short time between when he took his sight off of the building before he took his shot. "So she was already winded. That is no way for someone to die..."

The bodies had piled up the closer he got to the roof stairs, 'they must have been waiting for her. Not that it helped them at all.' The Albanian simply shook his head, so many different bullet sizes. Had she taken their weapons and used them on the others? Amazing, and it made him feel a bit like a heel, killing a virtuoso so long before her time. 'Of course he would have wanted the hit removed from her. Asada Shino would have made one _hell_ of a Covenant member."

Remembering the warning _That Man_ had given him, the Albanian lowered his cello case to the ground. Holding his cellphone in one hand to take the verification picture, the other palmed something akin to a conductor's baton. He was certain Sinon was dead, but that did not mean he was the only one with a line of sight to the body.

With the Albanian looking out toward the high-story windows and rooflines of nearby buildings, it was not surprising that he missed a pair of red eyes staring at him from a shadowed alcove right behind him.

As he got closer to the body, the Albanian's eyes narrowed; something seemed decidedly wrong. The clothes concealed his victim's form somewhat, but the corpse seemed too tall, too broad in the shoulders. His blood chilled as he reached down for the scarf, revealing a man in his twenties. He dropped his cellphone, reached for his pistol, and turned to see the skull mask on her head, the pistol in Sinon's right hand.

He had already begun preparing for the worst, his lips working even as he tried to push past the shock; the Albanian had just been tricked by a fifteen year old girl. Knowing he wouldn't get the pistol up in time, instead he thrust the wand forward, spitting out the last bit of his incantation.

Asada Shino fired at the head of her hunter, her prey, fully expecting for him to drop like a puppet with the strings cut. She had not expected something akin to a wall of air slowing her bullet, had not expected him to duck to the side, drawing only a small scratch on him. Seeing his pistol raising, she simply started firing into him, hoping that enough bullets would get through whatever was going on.

He had been fast enough, the air shield took most of the force from her bullets. The Albanian took the last two bullets into his right shoulder with enough force to push him back, to break his arm painfully even as he lost his footing. Seeing himself starting to go over, he spied the most shadowed landing spot he could find, and simply let gravity take over, hoping Sinon would be just a bit too overwhelmed to look down.

He gambled correctly. All Shino could do was look on as he fell, and say, "What fresh hell is this?"


	25. 3-A: War On Insert Pronoun Here

This seemed to come out funny, though I'm not sure yet if it's strange funny or hilarious funny. Of course, the fact I wrote this after shoveling a metric shit ton of snow might be why I've been feeling a little funny all week. If this seems off, I blame it on the other four letter S word.

* * *

Zero Hour: The Albanian(Vier Und Drei); War On Insert Pronoun Here

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 45 Days: May 6th, 2025)

As she turned her phone back into standby mode, Shino's eyes seemed to glare at something so very far away as she continued, "You see, while we were battling on the rooftop, Nanami was confronted by her boss about a certain something he had discovered about me." Forcing herself to appear calm, even as she privately raged about Kikouka's actions, she smiled sadly as she added, "That sick man attempted to make her see the consequences of her actions. He had snipers on you the entire time, but he tied their hands so that you could take the shot."

The Albanian's eye twitched, and he said, "Well, I can not say that I am too surprised about that. Kikouka Seijirou does have a bit of a reputation in the Great Game as a control freak, and all of a sudden, he needed to worry about the girl who effectively remade his future." He smirked as he played the recording over in his head. "Even so, making her listen to the report like that? A dick move at best."

That drew the amused, expected response, "And backfired horribly in the end. After what happened with Endou, blatantly attempting to cow Nanami?" The girl could only shake her head, "He must have thought so little of his pint-sized powerhouse, trying to break her into his own mold. He certainly never expected her to get a full playback of it."

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 39 Days: April 30th, 2025)

It had been another long, hellish day at school for Shirou Endou. Masterful as she was about finding information about others, her flirtatious attitude around the boys in school made it rather difficult to completely hide her own doings. One of those now rose up to bite Asada Shino squarely in the butt.

One of her long line of ex-boyfriends (or to be more honest, one of her previous flavors of the week) had found out about her trips to Shino's house. He didn't require her devilish powers of observation, he had simply needed to follow her bike the day before, when Shino had gone missing. He saw the other girl show up, he couldn't tell who she was from twenty meters away, but she seemed familiar to him.

Putting two and two together and coming up with Twisted, he had thought up the most amusing rumor to let loose. After all, whenever Endou wasn't hanging off the shoulder of a different guy, she hung around with her two best friends. Combine that with her being with two other girls, and the teen's particularly sleazy thoughts immediately went to a reason he had not been able to keep her.

Endou noticed the others eying her oddly, heard the whispers. She had spread enough rumors herself that she knew the signs. Out came the phone, up went the search on herself, and wide flared the eyes as she saw what had been posted about her by A Nanny Mouse. When she had seen her two thugettes-in-arms, her eyes narrowed dangerously. They had heard about, been implicated by the rumor, and they had not been pleased. "You know the rules, girls. Track him, find him, make him wish we kill him."

Shino herself arrived shortly thereafter, and heard the whispers as well; it wasn't the fault of the teens that she could hear every juicy word about how she was part of a Shoujo-Ai love dodecahedron, and how nobody seemed to know who the mystery girl was. The few visible bruises above the neckline of her shirt only added strange fuel to the fire. Instead of reacting in outrage, she simply closed her eyes, trying to will herself to not hear, and knowing she needed industrial quantities of brain bleach.

Worse still was that a photo recognition program in a JSDF computer picked up on the photo of one Shirotaka Nanami, even with the hoodie she had been wearing. The adaptive programming picked up on it, pinged it, and let a spider search loose on the others involved in the blog posting. Names and dates, pictures, and correlations were wrapped together. The photo recognition program twigged to another bit of media, the slaying of three students in the video of [Laughing Coffin's] final death game by one of the supposed participants of the supposed schoolgirl lesbian tryst. The contents of Nanami's call to a member of the JSDF were logged and cross-referenced with a police report which led to the discovery of fifteen corpses and one pile of cubed human meat at a meat packing plant, in turn leading to the voice recording of Shino's interrogation. This in turn was sent to Lt. Col. Kikouka.

Thus it was that a salacious rumor by a jilted lover with absolutely no basis in fact led Kikouka Seijirou to [Sinon's] identity, as well as a few threats to one of his most important assets. He thought quickly, trying to figure out the best way to protect his investment. The rumor would bite him in the ass, too.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 40 Days: May 1st, 2025)

It did not take Endou long to figure out who had planted the rumor. A look at the blog's source identified her would-be tormentor, one of her previous indiscretions. Tomorrow the three would retaliate, after Endou looked up the proper background while Rika and Tomoe followed the little piece of filth to take pictures. It was petty, spiteful, and planned to be a seven-fold repayment in kind.

The three of them planned their little operation shortly after school was out; they still needed to do well enough to get into just the right colleges after all. Thus, when Shirou Endou spotted someone trying to hot-wire her motorcycle as school let out, she was thinking on other things as she approached to try to get him off her bike, instead of doing the smart thing, like call the police.

When the would-be bike thief heard her yelling, instead of running, he slid a little surprise into his hand; when Endou grabbed him to try to force him off (and beat the hell out of him, perhaps some small bit of Shino's activities had rubbed off on her), he made like he was trying to swing a hook at her.

It became quickly apparent to Endou that she did not have that which made Shino so dangerous. She did not have Sinon's skills, her sharp senses, and most importantly, her pragmatism; she had warned the thief, practically announced herself to him. It was only as she ducked that she noticed the balisong he bore in a reverse grip. Had she not ducked, the knife would easily have slid along her neck and cut her throat. Instead, the blade met skin, skull, and then eyes as Endou screamed in agony, dropping and holding her face with both hands.

Moving to finish the job, the assailant never saw the approaching policeman until he heard, "DROP IT!" Instead of doing the smart thing (like getting a paying job instead of boosting bikes), the man turned on the officer, who discharged his taser into the drugged-up crook. Seeing how ineffective that was as the thief continued to advance on him, the cop drew his service pistol. It took six shots to stop him, the would-be thief never noticed the bullets until his body simply would not move anymore.

That was little consolation to Endou; the officer would try to keep her calm while waiting for the ambulance to arrive, with little success. A desultory examination revealed no surprises, Endou's eyes had been horrifically ruined, and she would never see again.

For the plainclothes MP who had seen the entire thing, it complicated life considerably. Endou needed to be brought in for questioning about some incident he was not privy to, but he somehow doubted that the cop, ambulance crew, or doctors would allow him anywhere near his patient. Instead, he called his superior officer who had given him the orders, and said, "Sir, you are not going to believe this, and I know you are not going to like this..."

Kikouka, the originator of the detain order, could only sigh as he listened to the description of what had happened. He had hoped to use Shirou Endou's arrest as one more bit of leverage to get Nanami to hand Sinon over to him on a silver platter. Using just the information he had acquired from the internet spider would expose capabilities he did not want his prize pupil knowing about just yet, the head of RATH might need to use them later. He would have to move quickly in order to be able to make use of the vigilante, he needed an asset not attached to him to do a 'job' for him.

That bastard Sugou had informed him that there were a number of those accursed helmets being used by Tono's organization. He had called to warn him that a connection between Tono and himself could not be allowed to be made, otherwise the connection might spread to RATH as well. As far as Kikouka was concerned, it was blackmail plain and simple, but he would shed no tears at Tono Issei's demise.

That was when his cellphone began ringing the tune to Dragnet, the tone he had assigned to the police organizations he contacted from time to time. His Interpol contact called to give him a heads up on yet another walking disaster in play. They had made an assassin and his apparent target, a certain vigilante.

"I know you had an interest in Sinon, but keep your head down on this one. The Albanian is what is politely referenced as an 'Exceptional Asset', his presence in Japan? Means that Sinon is good as dead."

Kikouka managed to keep a polite tone to his voice until the call ended. Then he stood up, threw his phone at the wall hard enough to break the phone and leave cracks in the stucco, and swept his desk clean while uncharacteristically screaming at the top of his lungs, "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU..."

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 43 Days: May 4th, 2025; Ginza)

"UUUUUUUCK!" Kikouka Seijirou took a long breath to calm himself, he had everything in place, but he was loath to simply waste another potential asset.

He had just heard back from the phone company. Shirotaka Nanami had made a call to a cloned disposable cellphone, no doubt that of Asada Shino. He was now certain that if he wanted to keep Nanami's usefulness to the RATH Project, he was going to need the Asada girl disposed of. Fortunately, he only needed to bide his time with that, The Albanian had been tracking the source of his annoyance with cello case in hand. It was only a matter of time, and two Military Intelligence officers were tracking the entire affair.

A quick call to his pilot slash driver later, and Nanami was on her way to the posh restaurant he had planned for this. Tasteful surroundings might offset the very unpleasant task he had at hand, he was going to need to show the cyborg savant just what keeping Sinon's identity would cost. It was unfortunate, but Kikouka needed to show her there were consequences for hiding things he really needed to know about.

The girl followed Captain Hiraga in, a tight, nervous smile on her lips as she slowly made her way to the table that her mentor was sitting at. Taking a seat, she looked to Kikouka, and asked, "Hiraga-sama told me that you needed me here for an observation. Might I ask what this is about?" Following the elder man's actions, she looked at the menu, eyes widening slightly in shock at the prices.

Kikouka smiled sadly, tried his best to look paternal as he slid his new cellphone into the middle of the table. "You might want to listen to the file I've got loaded on that." He looked to the captain, noticed the pilot squirming a little in his seat as Nanami plugged into the phone, sliding a pair of earbuds into her ears as she hit 'play'.

Hearing the very tail end of Shino's interrogation at the hands of the thugs at the meat packing plant caused Nanami's eyes to narrow dangerously, watching as the Lt. Colonel popped a bluetool into his ear. "Shirotaka-chan, you should have told me straight out that Asada Shino is Sinon. I might have been able to save her life if I had known beforehand."

Watching Nanami's eyes widen, her mouth open as if to argue, Kikouka knew he had the young genius right where he needed her. "What... What do you mean by that, Kikouka-sama?" whispered she, before her mentor tapped a control on his watch to turn the audio over to the play-by-play of the Intel men he had watching the entire thing. Comprehension came quickly to her, as she heard them talking about how the girl had just entered an office building, how the assassin had gone up to his sniping position. The girl's voice kept low, an even tone as she hissed, "What the hell is this?"

Kikouka could only close his eyes as he said, "This is the inevitability of what happens when someone takes the wrong path, Nanami-chan. Sinon pissed off someone with a lot of money, a lot of power, and she is about to pay with her life for that." He turned on the microphone on his earpiece, and said, "I need an ongoing status report, gentlemen. I need to know when The Albanian takes the shot."

The sound of wood being placed under massive stress could be heard as Nanami glared at her boss. "Why do this? Why have me listen to this, Kikouka?" asked she, "What do you want in order for you to stop this before it's too late?" Her voice began to go monotone...

"It's already too late. The moment The Albanian was called here, it was too late." said the man sadly as he continued to listen. "If I tried to stop this now, the only thing that would happen is that he would turn on me, and everyone attached to me, next." He looked over to her, saying in as comforting a tone as he could make, "I'm letting him do this in order to save your life. You killed one of Tono's assets."

A single BANG! could be heard. "That's it, sir, The Albanian took the shot, scope kill, scope kill."

The Lt. Colonel simply leaned back, speaking into his bluetool. "All right. Keep an eye on the scene until the cops get there, do not under any circumstances engage the shooter." He received two 'Affirmative' responses, and said, "This is why I need you to come in to the Project all the way, Nanami-chan. The world is a dangerous, dangerous place, and I do not want to lose your potential too."

Then the situation turned sideways in short order.

* * *

(Office Complex)

The two men who had been watching everything go down on orders coming originally from the desk of Kikouka Seijirou had been getting photographs of everything as they spotted something new. The Albanian had made a clean kill, and even now was confirming his kill. Everything had gone as Kikouka had expected it to, until the assassin seemed to freeze on the roof as he looked down at the corpse he had made. "Sir, something's up, The Albanian is taking it very careful..."

They watched as he dropped his phone, reached for his pistol. They took photos while watching the situation, and saw the Skull Mask emerge from the shadows, saw the Albanian duck, weave, and then finally take a few rounds solidly, saw Sinon step forward and continue to fire until she had emptied her clip into her target, saw him fall over the side of the roof. "Holy. Shit. Sir, you're not going to like this."

Over their radios, they heard a tired, "What happened this time," almost as if the man had been resigned to something going haywire. The two soldiers looked at each other, shrugged, and the radio man said, "Target Sinon just walked out of the shadows and dropped a full clip into The Albanian. If the bullets didn't kill him, the fall did."

They heard laughter from a teenaged voice over their radios, then the Lt. Colonel saying, "Well. Great. See if you can get up there, find Sinon, and bring her in if possible."

The two men looked over to the building, and the man not on the radio said, "Hey man, if you don't make it back from this, I've still earned the right to date your sister." As they opened the unlocked door into the office complex, the two were assailed with the coppery tang of spilled blood, the scorched scent of fired nitrocellulose, and the first eight of the thirty bodies they would find on their way to the roof. "Jesus. It's an abattoir in here, sir. I'm counting eight bodies in the entryway alone." His partner closed in on each body, just to make sure it was dead, and found five different round sizes. "Damn. I think she offed them with their own guns. Just look how far spread apart the casings are."

The two noted the positioning of the corpses as they made their way up, apparently Sinon's shot selection had gotten sloppier as she climbed the stairs to the roof access. Multiple rounds, different guns, blood everywhere, she had left signs of a massive struggle. "I just thought of something. Why would she have taken a lower shooting spot to snipe from?" asked one of them, the other simply shrugging, the scene simply didn't make sense, as if it had been cut from some bad 80's action flick.

As they burst through the door to the roof, they saw the cloaked form of their primary mission running for the side of the roof, carrying a cello case of all things as she jumped off the side. Seeing the rope sliding down behind her, the two spotted the ring she had attached part of the rope through, saw the RGN hand grenade it was attached to, and did the only smart thing: They ran like hell back through the door. "Well shit..." asked the one with the camera after five seconds, "Think that was a dud?"

The explosion a second after the words left his mouth earned him a slap in the back of the head, "What were you thinking, saying that!" The one with the radio waited a full ten seconds before walking back through the ruined roof exit. "Sir, you're going to like this even less. Objective Sinon has left the building. I repeat, Objective Sinon has gotten clear of us, and after seeing what she did here, I suspect you just had us piss off an exceptional asset."

* * *

(Ginza)

'No, no, I think I just pissed two off.' thought Kikouka as he looked across at Shirotaka Nanami, whos grin looked positively venomous. "All right, get out of there and prepare your report." said he, deflated. 'Well hell. What else can go wrong today?'

The call ended, and Kikouka moved to take his phone back, when he noticed what port Nanami had plugged into. The audio port was open, she had been using one of the bus ports... "Oh no." Her lips softened somewhat, turning to a serene smile as she unplugged from his phone. "Shirotaka-chan... Just what did you do?"

"You might want to take a listen to the file I just loaded on this," said she while tapping her modified AMUSphere. "You should have told me you were a snake. I might have been able to save your career if I had known beforehand." The teenager's glare softened, and she spoke slowly, seriously, mirroring what Kikouka had said earlier, "This is the inevitability of what happens when someone takes the wrong path, Sei-chan. You pissed off someone with a lot of information, a lot of power, and you are about to pay with your career for that." She paused for a moment, a finger touching her lips as she seemed to think, before she added, "If you're talking about Ghoul, though, I didn't gank that gutter trash, though I most certainly wish that I had."

Kikouka's eyes widened, narrowed, and calmed as he figured out what Nanami had in mind. 'Great, I'm about to be blackmailed by a fifteen year old girl,' he thought. Putting on his game face, "I assume you want to make some kind of a bargain then, in exchange for that recording not going to those who do not need to hear it." He could only hope Nanami was in the bargaining mood...

The cyborg said, happily and in a conversational tone, "Well, for starters, I'll have the strawberry torte, as well as notice that if you ever pull any kind of shit on me or my friends ever again, they'll need a wet-vac to retrieve your corpse." Kikouka had no doubt the girl could make good on that threat, having seen the before and after pictures she caused to too many terrorists.

"Next, I need you to retroactively OK the use of the Medicube for Shirou Endou. If it hadn't been for the information she provided, right now I would be leaving Ginza in a police car, and you in a hearse." Nanami smiled sweetly as her boss nodded his assent; it was not like he could refuse her, though he did note to find out more about the blinded young woman.

Holding up three fingers, the teenager continued her demands. "I wish you had simply asked about Shino, she needs assistance. Now that you've screwed everything up, though, I strongly doubt she'll trust anything you do to try to 'help' her. Instead, when this entire mess is over, I'll need you to contact Mental Health, and let them decide who would be best to help keep her from turning into more of a killer than she's already become."

The officer in a fine suit nodded, and said, "That's perfectly reasonable." He also knew exactly who to talk to; several psychologists would work perfectly for what he had in mind. Shino would end up a more controlled soldier after they were done with her. "Wait, you mentioned a mess."

The fourth finger came up. "Yes. You know the HAW design I worked up, and showed you? It's ready for use, I'll need you to sign off on both it and the Warsaw Pact arms that the students swiped from those Red Army assholes. The reason for that is..."

The thumb popped up, and Shirotaka Nanami's grin turned feral. "Asada Shino is not going to stop until Tono Issei is dead. He's the man who let Laughing Coffin run free, who profited most from the videos made of their death games, and who forced her onto the path she now follows." Her eyes narrowed, and her voice ran bitter, "In the end, he's responsible for my getting maimed. I know I wouldn't have invented the harness if that hadn't happened, but I suspect I wouldn't have gotten that taste for something bad if he'd reined his bastard grandchild in. His syndicate also supplied the meth that the jackass that blinded Endou was high on."

She seemed to gauge Kikouka as she finished her demands. "In short, the three of us want to rip his works apart down to the flagstones, to gut his organization so that it never rises again, to put an end to that man before he can ruin any more lives."

In that moment, Kikouka heard the Halleluiah Chorus going off in his head, this had been unexpected, but very very welcome. He smiled, and said, "I will need to see what I can do regarding those, Shirotaka-shi. The kind of repercussions from what would essentially be an army-supported hit job would be enormous." He paused to think for a second, "There would need to be a rather massive justification to say yes to that..." Not that he wouldn't manufacture one to get the job done, now he just needed to be careful not to get Nanami caught in the gunfire of a battle, the backlash that might cause.

The girl's face went serene as she pulled out a tablet with the explosives purchases Endou had found, sliding it over to her bastard of a boss. "What would you do if I told you Tono's majordomo hooked The Heartbreaker up with a weapons dealer? Would that justify the use of lethal force?"

Kikouka's jaw dropped and his eyes widened. Nanami had just gift-wrapped the solution to his Tono problem. "Nanami-shi, I think you have just successfully green-lit your War on Terror."


	26. 3-5: Friendly Sniper

Zero Hour: The Albanian (fünf); Friendly Sniper

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 45 Days: May 6th, 2025: Watermark Hotel Sasebo, 11:00AM)

It had not taken Shino long to hunt her would-be slayer down. The Albanian had needed a trip to the hospital to have his right arm put in a hard cast, rounds that should have gone through at least Class II body armor to put a bloody spray across the office complex' crenelations had instead bounced. The force from the bullets had been just enough that she had broken the assassin's arm in three different places.

From the hospital, Endou had found out he had two visitors, the blue-haired girl spotted when the Albanian had arrived, and a singular man who looked simultaneously full of youth and vigor, and eyes that looked like they had seen hundreds of years. Endou kept running image scans, trying to figure out who the three were without any luck; she dared not connect to the darknet using that MediCube.

Diving through a sea of digital information, Endou happened along a notice matching up the assassin's appearance to that of a cellist who had to cancel the remaining portion of his tour in Japan due to an unfortunate injury. Pulling on that little thread had led Endou to the fact that the Albanian had been staying at the Watermark Hotel.

Asada Shino could only smile at the young bellhop, explaining that the cellist had left his case behind when he had his accident, she had found it and simply wanted to return it, looking the part of a star-eyed young fan of the cellist. The bellhop called for his manager, who had in turn called upstairs to let her target know the cello was on its way back. No doubt the Albanian might be suspicious, but she had come too far to stop now, she was ready.

When she had been led up to the penthouse suite, Shino had to do her best not to look too awed by the fine taste of the foyer to the suite, let alone the rest of it. The bellhop had buzzed the door for her, told The Albanian they were there.

"Ahh, is that Miss Shino with my cello case? Please, let the young miss in." said a cultured voice in flawless Japanese over the intercom, "I'm just ready for tea time as it is."

'Well, **SHIT**.' thought Shino as the door opened to reveal the aristocratic features of the blond-haired European, a red silk morning jacket slid over his form, a noticeably smaller, less rigid cast on his right arm, and that damnable conductor's baton in his left sleeve. As the door clicked, closed behind her, Shino drew a pistol from a shoulder harness, only to see her target raise the ornate baton, whisper a single word as he pointed it at her.

The Black Star Shooter was wrenched from her hand by some force unseen straight onto the table in front of the man. Asada Shino reached for another pistol, saw the wand pointed at her, and sighed, pulling it out more slowly. "If you can do that Force Grab horsecrap repeatedly, I simply am not fast enough on the draw, am I?" asked the vigilante even as the .45 she drew was more gently removed from her other hand, to sit next to her Type 54.

"Please, there is no need for such crudity here, Asada-sama." said The Albanian as he waved his wand once more, to move the cello case just where he wanted it and the pistols to another table behind him. "The Founder's Gift isn't hocum if it actually works, after all." Convinced everything was as he needed, The Albanian slid his want back into its holster, waiting as the tall bluenette walked in with a tea tray and three delicate teacups. "Please, take a seat. It would be impolite of me if I did not offer you refreshment after bringing my cello case back."

Taking the seat opposite the killer, Shino sniffed the air gently, carefully. The herbal mixture of the tea, the peach scent of fine brandy, and antiseptic liniment mixed oddly, alongside a stronger scent, the fine perfume The Albanian's lady friend was wearing. The ceramic teaballs went into the hot water, staining it a shade of red that had become too familiar to Shino over the past month and a half. Opening her eyes, the vigilante asked, "So, where do we go from here?"

The man smiled widely, calmly. "Yes, that is the question indeed. I must congratulate you. It has been many years since someone has actually made it necessary for me to lay back for any length of time, I'm going to be out of action for a solid week." He looked slightly embarrassed, before dipping his head lightly. "Lady, my name is Tarik Edonis ju Lumtë. You likely know me better as The Albanian."

* * *

(12:00 PM)

"So, I could understand how you would come up with the alias [Death Gun], it rather aptly describes what you were to [Laughing Coffin]. Just how did you end up with the name [Sinon], though?" A bemused Tarik leaned back in his chair; the three had gone into the kitchen for a light lunch while the two killers talked business, and the bluenette kept moving, checking up on things from time to time.

Shino could only close her eyes and laugh. "That was an invention of the police, actually. When I painted the wall of that boiling oil chamber with Laughing Coffin's blood, I wasn't really in my right mind. It was the first time I had ended lives in cold blood; up to that point, the only people I killed had been done in defense of myself, or in the case of the sick twisted..." She had to pause, finding the right words that didn't involve the seven banned words, "monster in human form that maimed Nanami, in defense of others. Even Kyoji, that was self-protection, because he would have tried again."

A raised eyebrow from The Albanian seemed to spur her on a little. "Souichi was the one that finally pulled me up onto the precipiece of the choice to kill, who had told me that one way or another, death was my fate. He told me that I would either be like him, or I would be dead." Shino managed a brief laugh. "I think he never imagined that he would push me past the breaking point, that in my break from reality I would find a third way, one that required his demise."

She leaned her head into her shoulder, seeming a bit shy then. "It was the first time I let my rage out; I thought to myself if killing them was evil, then why did it feel so right? In that time, I just let the darkest part of me out, and it felt like painting. That little emblem I made out of their blood when I was out of my mind, the words 'Sin' and 'On' were just close enough together where someone put them together, and thus 'Sinon' was born." Shino could only shrug. "I never planned on taking the name, it just stuck because of some police that had to find a name for their new favorite killer."

That earned a nervous laugh from the older man. "So, Death Gun is a killer with a conscience then; I suppose I already knew that. Sinon was a complete accident?"

"Yes. When they didn't match Death Gun to Sinon, it gave me more room to play, a second alias, a second serial killer killer loose in Sasebo." Shino leaned back in her chair, took her glasses off, set them to one side.

Tarik nodded in understanding. "So, why do you kill then? Why not find some other way to deal with the situation, like leading the police to them? There are other ways of dealing with criminals other than ending their lives." The slight grin on his face made him seem understanding.

The girl thought on what had brought her here... "I know I'm not the most stable girl in the world, but after dealing with Laughing Coffin, three different batches of Yakuza, and those Communist... Well, whatever they were... I've come to understand that killing in and of itself is not evil, it's the reason behind ending a life that makes it good or evil." She frowned slightly, "When I killed Laughing Coffin, I was acting on my baser instincts; one could easily make the case that what I did was insanity. When Tono's men showed up in the cathedral, that's when I began to understand when, why to kill."

"The only thing the police are good for now is cleaning up after the fact, and enough of them have been corrupted that getting the Yakuza arrested only works for the really big crimes, not the everyday evils that lead up to the big crimes. That is why I kill them, to stop them from hurting someone else like they did to me. Oh." Shino paused, a missing piece of the puzzle that she had been looking for now in mind. "Because I kill, others do not die, or are not spattered with the blood I bear on my hands."

The man smiled and sighed sadly, "Tono's pitch made you appear to be some kind of serial killer targeting his men. Had he been honest when he drew up the contract on you? He would have received a visit from _That Man._ The Princes of the Council of Thorns do not appreciate others betraying their associates , especially those who try to use Covenant members to kill relatives of the Thirteen."

Shino looked confused as she put her glasses back on and asked, "Who is _That Man_ , that he seems like such a boogeyman? I heard the goon that had Ghoul capture me talking about him like he was some kind of monster in the shape of a man, with the skills of God Himself."

The laugh Tarik gave seemed forced as he said, "He is the [Black Cait], Miss Asada, a man who doesn't use special talents like I have, yet Interpol ranks him as an Exceptional Asset on this world. To face _That Man_ is to meet Death himself." He paused as if to mull over if he should say something before relaxing and changing the topic to Shino's misadventures with Ghoul.

* * *

(1:00 PM)

Tarik seemed a bit amused as Shino finished her very first alcoholic drink in her entire life. 'The poor girl has been so very sheltered by the way of life prescribed for her. She's going to be hell on wheels when she finally grows up.' thought he, before turning back to what had brought them together, the battle in the office complex. "I've been wondering, how come you shot so many times in the complex? You normally do your targets with a single shot, two at most from the reports I've read. Was it because you had to use so many different guns to do the deed?"

The laughter of his guest was long, raucous, and tear-filled. "Oh, you have no idea, do you?" asked she, drawing an inquisitive look from her host.

When Shino had calmed down after a few minutes, she said, "The only bullets I fired that day were at you." Noting the confusion on her host's face, she added, "I picked out the thirty most dangerous gang members that Tono's syndicate had not yet turned into Made Men; each of them had caused the end of a human life in some manner. When I had someone call them, I may or may not have fed a lie to them that in return for the death of the blond-haired blue-eyed sniper on the hotel rooftop that was Sinon, I would have them Made with a lot of cash besides."

"What." The word immediately left The Albanian's lips. A few seconds passed before he burst out in laughter, joined by his guest shortly thereafter before she continued her explanation.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 42 Days: May 3rd, 2025; Sasebo Memorial Hospital)

Shirou Endou had been waiting for her chance to help Shino out after the younger girl had somehow managed to find someone with the connections to get a MediCube set up for the blinded teenager. Being able to see something, even if it wasn't the real world, had been a mercy for the older girl who had but a few days ago relied upon those now destroyed orbs to bring her so much of the information she had craved like a thirsting man needs water.

The Medicube had been a revelation to the information junkie. Instead of simply browsing information like she had been used to since the beginnings of her pastime of rumor-mongering, now she practically swam in a massive ocean of information. It had taken her less than a day to become accustomed to the difference in the GUI, the different sensations one might expect from FullDive compared to staring at a computer screen. In combination with a few modifications Shirotaka Nanami had applied, it was almost like she had gained something greater to replace her lost sight.

When Shino had asked her to come up with the names of the thirty men most likely to replace some of the gumi the vigilante had put an end to, Endou had originally found thousands of those whos varied profiles stated were living the gang life. One of them had sold the meth to the psycho who blinded her, making him an easy choice. She had cut the list rapidly when she cross-referenced arrest records to that mix; by noon, Endou had a cold-call list of about two hundred who had proved to bear a chilling indifference to others' wellbeing. Using the Macebook profiles of several, she picked out who was likely to shoot at others on her list, and handed the whole thing off to Shino.

* * *

(Sasebo Naval Base)

Having connected the GOR Router so that her calls would look like they were from a cellphone in the middle of the office complex Shino had picked out, Shirotaka Nanami slid the recording chip in to the cellphone. Making the voice of an adult male had not been a challenge for the genius, but making herself not sound like a stereotype, that had been more difficult.

In the end, it had not mattered. Each of the men on the list she held before her now had been responsible, either directly or indirectly, for the end of a human life. Notes had been left on the list on who to call first, who hated whom, and berserk buttons for each of her targets.

The audio setup had already been made in the office complex, tested, and run through again just to be sure. Shino would take care of the other equipment the day of the attempted assassination, but Nanami's part in tearing the heart out of the next generation of thugs Tono might hire was well underway.

The assassin would get into position, shoot Sinon's body double, and then come to confirm the kill, if Shino's information had been right about this kind of situation. Now, all Nanami had to do was make the robocalls that would lead thirty men to their deaths, but she hesitated. She then spotted what crimes the men had been arrested for, had walked away from as free men because their victims were too afraid of them to get on the stand. She paled as she read through the lengthy list, looked several of the crimes up because she didn't know about them, and thought to herself, 'Why? Why are such evil men free?"

That was when she heard Kikouka refer to 'Raidihauku'. "Lady Hawk. Real subtle, boss, it's like I don't know how to speak English or something." She used the microphones she had worked into her AMUSphere to listen in to him talking on his cellphone as he passed by, heard him talking to two men from Intelligence, and heard him refer to Target Sinon as a lost cause, how he planned to use Shino's death to break her. Nanami thought quickly, before hitting the 'dial' button on the cellphone. 'Screw it. They aren't going to suffer enough before they go to Hell.' "Shino? Code Evangelion." called she on a separate phone, letting Sinon know that everything was all fucked up.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 43 Days: May 4th, 2025;Office Complex)

Shino had felt a little guilty as she watched the first men enter the building, enter her own take on the death game that had changed her life. She didn't feel guilt for what was about to happen to them, but instead for involving Nanami and Endou in this work, shame for making others do dirty work for her. She would never admit it to anyone, but she was beginning to wonder if ending Tono was worth the price of the evil she had asked the two of them to do, unknowing the two would have done so on their own to help her.

She had been watching as the first fight had broken out even before she could start her part of the show; apparently some of her guests were already trying to trim the number of those who might claim a cool half a million dollars and a place as a Made Man. Sighing, she flicked the switch that would begin the call over the intercoms.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen. You all know why you are here. Sinon must be stopped; the take for the man that puts an end to him gets the prize. However, to prove your worth, only the first man up onto the roof will have a chance to take the shot. Anyone who doesn't have the will to do that should leave now, while they have the chance."

Shino had actually hoped that one or two of them would leave, would take a moment after the carnage was over to figure out what they had done was wrong, to turn to a better path. She found herself disappointed but unsurprised when not one of them turned to leave, but instead one of them went for his pistol, leading to the next, and quickly, twenty-nine dead men in the building proper. She slid into position to wait for the winner; if by some freak chance the gangster that got onto the roof actually managed to kill The Albanian, she wanted to be prepared to congratulate him after she shot the winner of the sniper duel in the head.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 45 Days: May 6th, 2025: Watermark Hotel Sasebo, 1:30PM)

"And they fucking bought that shit?" escaped The Albanian's lips before he could come up with a more polite way of asking the question, eyes wide with shock.

"Like gas station sushi. They all arrived, and they heard over the intercoms that only the one who made it to the top would get a shot at you, to winnow out the weak ones not worth being Made. The thirty that died in the building two days ago, I killed them all with nothing more than their own greed."

Shino's lips tugged upwards into something like a satisfied cat's smile as Tarik looked at her with surprise and perhaps fear. "That sounds like something the Black Cait would do." said he respectfully, bowing to the teenager as he did so, even as he opened the cello case to retrieve a long black box from it. "Well, as the winner of our duel, this belongs to you now, like the drink, it's a bit of tradition." He held the box as if testing its weight, before his lips twisted into a crooked smile. "This, and the rifle that was inside of it before you had someone unlock it for you. Congratulations, and let's not do this again."

* * *

(2:00 PM)

Shino had collected the detection shielded box; she had been warned that the officials kept coming up with new ways to detect things, so she would need to keep up on the arms race. Shino had noticed the bluenette kept going back and forth between the main suite and the receiving room; one time when the door opened, Shino's nose picked up a peculiar minty smell that woke her up even as some of the colors about her began brightening gently.

"I have so many questions for you, Maestro ju Lumtë, but your other guest shouldn't be kept waiting any longer, I fear. If you will abide with me one moment, though... Just what is the power you used to keep me from killing you?" Shino holstered the two pistols before closing her jacket, opening her mouth to seemingly taste the air about her, even as her eyes narrowed to slits from the aroma.

The Albanian looked at Shino, appraising her strange behavior as he considered his answer. "That power, the gift of the Founder to a very few, could best be described as magic where I come from. In a certain point of view, whenever something is taken from this place to there, from that place to here, its power is released for use by those who can touch it, those blessed enough to do so."

He paused, thinking if he should say any more before adding, "The last time it was released so that I could notice it, sixty thousand people disappeared." His face seemed somber, wistful as he noted, "And I can feel a _lot_ more of it building, Asada Shino. Be very, very careful, it should not be played with as if it were a toy. If I had not been caught flat-footed at that office complex, I would have turned you into a red smear on the rooftop. Assume that any one, any thing that can use it is able to do the same."

Shino nodded, even as some of the odd euphoric sensation began to fade, blurring pleasantly into the background as the scent began to lose some of its hold on her. "In any case, Tarik-sama, I thank you for your time, and your words of wisdom. I promise to remember them." She bowed formally, adding, "All of them." before turning slowly and making her way out. 'What was that scent?'

* * *

(2:15 PM)

"Please, old friend, there is no need to apologize for what might have happened at the office complex." said a man who physically looked in his mid twenties, who had eyes that looked like they had seen the opening and closing of centuries. Leaning back, he actually purred lightly as he sipped a tea made from the leaves of Nepeta cataria, Common Catnip. His eyes closed as an intense look of relaxation crossed his visage. "She needed to be tested anyway, I needed to know if Asada Shino would be able to follow the Rule of Steel." _That Man_ , the Black Cait, simply smiled contentedly. "Please, Eirn, take a seat, this has been a most educational visit today."

The bluenette sat next to The Albanian, then twisted slightly, using the man as a lap pillow while her legs draped over the side of the seat. Tarik looked down at her, and sighed, "I wish I could get that comfortable anywhere..." he mock-lamented, before looking back to his mentor, his master on this world. "So, how do you think she did?" he asked, tone serious.

 _That Man_ seemed deep in thought, though Tarik believed that his boss had long since made up his mind. "She was sloppy in several areas that could have turned out badly for her. Her lack of total awareness before her capture by those thugs of Tono's led to that capture. If you had been more on the ball, you might have bagged her then, but sometimes things simply run up into the comedy of errors that this was. That she gave you time to make her could have turned into a lethal mistake for her, and if she had not kept firing at the office complex, she would have died."

The Prince of Thorns smiled as he went on. "However, she managed to not only fight her way out of a deadly threat to her from Tono's goons, but managed to put all of the ones she's faced in the morgue. The girl managed to bring together one hell of a support team, though all three of them need hardening before I let them too close to the workings. Using that team, she arranged for a number of Tono's likely recruits to do the world a favor and kill themselves, and most importantly, she kicked your ass."

Tarik had no answer to that last note, he could only watch in shock as _That Man's_ lips actually managed to turn upwards into the faint ghost of a smile. His boss said finally, "She did better than I would have at that age, even with her senses just waking up. I'm proud to call her my great-great-grandaughter."

* * *

And I was pretty much two for two on the original release dates. Leonard Nimoy passed the day I originally posted this. Go boldly.-


	27. 3-6: Punishment

Without further ado, let's wind up the end of the arc.

* * *

Zero Hour: The Albanian(sechs); Punishment

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 46 Days: May 7th, 2025)

"Shino, you're not going to like this."

That had been the end of Asada Shino's evening yesterday. Endou had just gotten back to her regarding something she saw when she had that helmet on, felt such excruciating pain. Endou had followed the trail to its senseless conclusion. She had cross-referenced Shino's father, including appearance, with obituaries, and had come back with not one, but two hits, who died less than a week apart. The later victim, an underboss who worked in the Sasebo area, had been shot dead in front of his favorite bar. The police even had a suspect in custody for the hit, but let him go when evidence went missing.

Endou made the connection between the two, the gangster had left behind a wife and two year old daughter. He drove the improved version of the model the elder Asada, a police officer, had. Other Yakuza members had died suspiciously on the same roadway Shino's father had, of the same kind of freak auto accident. The identity of the suspected hitman who got away when there was a 'mishap' in the evidence locker, that no one would testify against? Tono Issei's majordomo. Endou had come to the conclusion that the murder of Shino's father had been the result of a bad case of mistaken identity.

As Shino rested comfortably in the entryway of the stairs overlooking the majordomo's favorite bar, her binoculars pointed in the direction of the bar's main door. Of the members of Tono's organization that had fallen prey to her, the only ones that had not forced her hand into killing them when she did were the bastards running the snuff film group, but they were a clear and present danger to anyone unfortunate enough to end up in their hands. That had been a rather intricate plan for an operation that likely could have been brought down by some joker in a skull t-shirt, leather coat, and a bottle of sake.

The rain had made picking everything out a little difficult, but there was no mistaking the majordomo; she actually did all the research, to make sure she didn't kill the wrong person, to ensure history did not repeat itself. Finally, the man and his bodyguards emerged from the gay bar. That had been a bit of a surprise to her, all of her research indicated that her target was as straight as an arrow. The reason why amused her to no end: The bar's food would, if it were a restaurant, have earned it Michelin Stars, and the majordomo had come to enjoy fine dining whenever he could find it recently.

Setting down her binoculars, she picked up the rifle that she had earned in battle with The Albanian. Exiting the doorway, she slid the bipod onto the lip of the roof and settled into position, aiming for the center rear seat in the car, where her target had come out from earlier. Selecting the clip by touch, Sinon gently popped it into place and chambered her first round of Mk. 323 Type 3 Polymer Case, she dared not use HEIAP at this distance. The vigilante smiled to herself as he took his final seating arrangement and buckled himself in, aiming just a little lower on the probability the car's glass was ballistic variety.

Even if she didn't get the head shot, there was not much that ever walked away from a .50 Cal BMG round going through the chest. Some part of her still decried the unfairness of this, not giving her target a chance to shoot back, but as the car started up, Sinon crushed that small bit of herself, disengaged the safety, and pulled the trigger.

Shino watched as the bullet went between the meter between two other buildings, watched the windshield blow out, saw the bullet make contact with her target, the back of the rear windshield painted red as it blew out in turn, watched as the bullet's energy died out digging a furrow in pavement.

She found it ironic and fitting as she began dismantling her rifle that Tono's majordomo died in the same manner as the man her father had unknowingly died to give a few more days of life to. "Don't worry, you son of a bitch. Tono's other six heads'll be joining you in Hell shortly."

The police would be stymied investigating where the shot could have come from thanks to the deflection off the armored glass, thinking it had come from the side of a concrete wall on the third floor of one of the buildings in front of where Sinon had shot from. They would call it an impossible shot, a phantom bullet.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 47 Days: May 8th, 2025)

"Endou, this is going to be distinctly uncomfortable. If the pain gets to be too much, I want you to tell me, please, so I can pull it out if I need to." Nanami would never have trusted the rumor-mongering bully Shirou Endou to do this for her, to be her first test for a side project she had envisioned ever since Ghoul's demise, ever since she got a look inside the Death Mask of Sinon.

Over the past few days, Endou had grown beyond that. She was beginning to turn away from being the witch with a capital 'B' she had been before Shino's interrogation, before she found out some of the consequences of being too ready to please the wrong people... Before she had lost her eyesight. The specter of her life being spent as a shell of what she had been, a shadow of what she had hoped to be had forced Endou to figuratively look at several unpalatable truths about herself.

Endou understood now that she should never have sold herself for popularity in a school where such was fleeting, where those one had thought were friends would turn on her. She also knew who would stick by her through the worst of times. Rika and Tomoe had both been to the hospital frequently; the pain in their voices from seeing her like that had spurred her on her course, to use the knowledge she might gain in the future to build something lasting, to leave proof of her existence behind. Shino and Nanami had, in turn, given her the tools to do so. Knowledge gleaned from the Medicube (like Odin with the Tree of Knowledge, Endou had mused ironically) and the visuals the Death Mask Ghoul had made were all parts to a puzzle Nanami's own fire-forged friends could use in turn to make a miracle.

When Roberto had figured out that it hadn't been a screen Shino had viewed, but instead parts from a NervGear that made her see out of the mask, Nanami had been thrilled, while the indomitable slayer of slayers was horrified to find out she had one of those _things_ on her head without even knowing it. Nanami had to work overtime to calm Shino down, but Ghoul's little innovation opened two new directions for the cyborg's mind to go in. Now it was time to find out if one of those paths would work.

Her crew had put a prototype together quickly, matching a sterile NXT polymer orb to the camera components. Ghoul's design had used off-the-shelf components in a cavity far smaller than the one they would have to work with. Roberto had far better optics to play with, but the first test would match up religiously to the two eyes Ghoul used. When Endou figured out what Nanami had in mind, she had volunteered on the spot. After all, it wasn't like she was going to get any more blind.

"All right, Endou-san, I'm putting them in now. I need you to open your eyes all the way... Just like that. OK, you're going to feel pushing, then a pop. That's the part that's going to hurt, let me know if the pressure gets too much..." Endou was knocked out under anesthesia, but Nanami kept talking anyway, to relieve the stress she had been feeling as the optometric surgeon began the hard part of the operation.

They had used a radio link in order to feed visuals into Endou's head during the pre-test; Nanami had somehow arranged to have Kikouka have someone from the military working the surgical side of things. The cybernetic eye was effectively a high tech glass eye with attachment points for the ligaments. That part of the surgery took two hours, the surgeon checking everything as he went to ensure the connections to the muscles that move the eyes would hold up.

* * *

After the post-op, after the anesthesia had worn off, Nanami was waiting next to Endou's still-resting form when the older teen woke up. "Fuck me, my head's banging worse than that one bender the girls and I had at Shino's." Sitting up slowly, Endou opened her eyelids, but didn't see anything. "Well, I guess it was hoping for too much." said she, disappointed but unsurprised.

That was when Nanami handed her a pair of glasses. "It's because you don't have the receiver on, Endou-san. They only work together with this..." She waited for the older teen to follow her directions; she had already plugged the tablet in and turned it on, waiting for Endou to... There. Just like that...

Endou's eyes widened as she slid the goggles, a more streamlined version of the AMUSphere, around her head. "Why're the colors all funny? It looks like what I'd expect an LSD trip to look like, all bright shades..." Then she made the mistake of looking near the sun, and went, "Oh holy shit! Bright light, bright light!"

Nanami checked the tablet, 'Shit, they're in Thermographic mode.' "Hold on a sec, Endou. How're they now?" She looked the older teen eye to eye, concerned. The look of awe on Endou's face amazed her...

The older girl remained silent for several seconds, before saying, "It's impossible. You've done what the doctors said couldn't be done..." The horror of living without one of her senses faded like a bad dream as Endou broke down in tears, happy tears as the smile tried its best to split her face. "I... I can see." She closed her eyes for a while before opening them again, just to be sure it had not been some kind of an illusion, wishful thinking, but when her eyes opened, there was the face of the genius who had made it possible. "Shirotaka Nanami-sama, I could kiss you..." Nanami looked a little surprised, backing off a little bit before Endou finished, "Except for the fact that if I did, I'd just make a little bastard's wishes come true." As eyebrows went up, Endou added, "Nothing you need to worry about. Seriously, though... You made the lame walk, you gave sight to the blind... All you'd need to do to achieve sainthood would be to have Shino laid somehow. It'll be a miracle if she ever stops being so tense."

As she listened to Endou's little speech on canonization, Nanami's face first showed rage at what she perceived as an attempt at black humor, calming at the mention of returning the older teen's vision, before finally sputtering incoherently as her elder finished up. "You can not mean that... Shino does not... What... You horrible horrible woman!" The cyborg's cheeks had turned a nice bright shade of red as she tried to process what Endou was saying, before willing herself into silence while she collected her thoughts.

"Wow. Just wow. You should see your face right now, Nana-chan. Maybe you need some of that for yourself. You've got that handsome man as your driver..." As Endou watched Nanami suddenly go very, very still, she looked at the girl's face, saw the horror on it, saw she had gone way too far. "Oh no. Are you all right, Nanami-san?"

As her eyes looked into Endou's, the young genius' face twisted hatefully. "You bitch. You horrible, loathsome, evil _bitch_." It took Nanami everything she had not to slap Endou, not to punch her in the face at that moment, instead turning and walking out of the recovery room.

"Oh my God. Oh shit. What the fuck is wrong with me..." said Endou, getting off the rest bed and following Nanami as best she could. Quickly running sloppily, she was able to follow Nanami by looking for the trail of doctors who had gotten out of the way. It did not take long for her to reach the gallery where the girl was looking through a window. Keeping some distance from her, Endou said regretfully, "You're right." As Nanami turned to look at her with puffy eyes, "You're right, I am an evil bitch. I let my desires run me, and I turn everything to shit around me." The older teen paused, and added softly, "But I do not want to be that way anymore. I want to leave something behind me other than bitterness, something that builds up instead of tears down. So please. Help me."

Nanami closed her eyes, nodding. "I'm sorry. That... I shouldn't have blown up at you like that." She paused, trying to let herself think it through before speaking, "You hit a raw spot, Endou-san. Everyone that I've ever gotten attached to, gotten close to? Is either dead, or horribly changed now. The first boy I might have come to love? Betrayed me and nearly murdered me. Most of the children in SAO I played alongside? Well, you've seen what the ones that survived have turned into; the 'Young Counter-Revolution' may be good at putting a crimp into the plans of evil men, but all of us SAOvivors're damaged goods. I wouldn't wish that kind of trouble on anyone. As for me?" Nanami caught her breath before whispering, "Only someone seriously wrong in the head could love a freak like me. I'm either a quadruple amputee, or I'm strong enough where I'd literally break someone in half, and that's without considering what kind of a basket case I am." The young girl fought back her tears, she could not let herself cry.

Seeing the genius bruiser like that touched something in Endou she had thought dead a long time ago. Stepping forward, she took the girl who had given her literal second sight into a tight hug. "We are all damaged goods, Nanami-san. It is part and parcel of what we are, it just means we're human.." When Nanami's head leaned into her shoulder, Endou felt something wet, and nodded. "You've kept your tears in for too long, if you keep everything in, you'll poison yourself with hate, turn yourself into the kind of monster you've been 'dealing' with." Letting a few tears fall herself, she begged, "Let me help you too."

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 49 Days: May 10th, 2025; Tono Compound)

It had been a long road for the three women, taking three very different paths. In the end, it brought the three of them to the helicopter pad near the main building in Tono's compound, facing the man himself.

Shino's path had been by far the most straightforward of the three, Tono's putting a hit on her had kept her on a path she might otherwise have abandoned, though now she would kill him for more reason than that. Nanami had grown into it, grown from a maimed girl seconds from death into the kind of combat monster she had imagined the Clearers to be, though by doing so she had become bitter. The last member of the group, Endou had joined the hunt when ironically being blinded had opened her eyes to other paths that she might not have followed, including putting it all on the line for her friends.

Of course, Endou knew she wasn't the kind of combat monster Nanami was, did not have the lethal intent of Shino, but she could guide the two of them. Eight drones had been kept in the air, all controlled from the safety of the side of the road on top of her motorcycle. Her new helmet, which had the same optics that had returned her sight in a spider pattern, bore a number of radio modules tuned to her new 'pets'; she had used off-the-shelf control electronics hooked into bus ports in her helmet.

The electric whirring of the three-rotor drones filled the night sky at about fifty feet high, it had given her a clear topographical view of the forested area Tono and the few dozen made men he still had following him had gone to, waiting for Sinon's visitation. They had thought themselves well camouflaged, protected from easily being able to be spotted in the night.

To thermographic cameras, they glowed like light bulbs. Endou was able to guide Shino easily to the ones running a patrol on the outside of the fence, though it had been rather more difficult for the older teen to keep her dinner down after seeing Shino in action. She had seen the younger girl shoot several of the gangsters down using the huge rifle she was now carrying; the rounds burned brightly to the heat-based cameras until they struck and exploded through their targets*. They made one hell of a messy racket and drew out more of the Yakuza, just as had been planned.

The helicopter that had dropped Shino off in the forest earlier in the day just then returned with the main payload. As the made men poured out of the main building's doors, they found death spitting at them from above. The unfortunate gangsters had been expecting to face Sinon alone, in order to rescue the kidnap victims Tono's men had taken to draw the vigilante out. Never in their worst nightmares could they have expected to be visited by a Walküre with a minigun. It had been ugly. It had been brutal. Mercifully, it had been short.

Nanami descended from the helicopter via black nylon rope in full Heavy Armor Walküre kit, the eyes of her own face mask blazing azure as she continued to force her way into the building. Nanami and Shino had been planning to go in after a special operations team, nothing more than witnesses to the end of the criminal organization Tono Issei had spent his entire life building up. Roberto had clued her in to the disappearance of two of her former school-mates four hours ago, blowing the original plan straight into the toilet. The ordinarily polite and helpful girl was ready to send all of Tono's men to hell on the express train, minigun spitting death at the objects of her wrath.

It was perhaps a grotesque twist of fate that Tono would kidnap the two students both Shino and Nanami had worked with during the Returnee School Assault. As Nanami burst through to where her radio had picked up the pair, she watched in horrified awe as the twins were laying in the wood chipper-desecrated remains of their six immediate captors, their hair no longer quite white as the two giggled gleefully. "Hey, is that you, Nana-chan?" said Hansel, with Gretel adding, "Look, we're making carnage angels!"

The defender of SAOvivors quickly yanked herself back out of the doorway, opening her mask so she could dry-heave. Like Shino, she had gone for a very light dinner, expecting heavy action and bloodshed. She had not expected to run into something that made Laughing Coffin look tame, benign by comparison, and mentally noted to have someone, anyone (other than her) get those two some serious psychiatric help. 'Shit. We should have waited a few hours. The job'd already be done...' thought she, before thinking more about it. 'No, on second thought... No one deserves _that_.'

At the same time, Shino had pulled herself up the wall of the compound, watching as several men ran towards the helicopter. "Sorry boys. This ends tonight." muttered she lightly, aiming her rifle at what looked like it might have been a fuel tank. The explosion that sundered the helicopter and the men closest to it proved her correct when she pulled the trigger; there was no escape, no retreat for Tono.

Endou drove her motorcycle up the road, then down the driveway to the compound. She was carrying the last part of the night's festivities, a metal case filled with what Shino called her disposal kit. The older teen wasn't sure she wanted to know what was in it, but it was just about time for her to bring it.

Nanami had finally brought the twins out, bright grins on their faces as they hugged Nanami's armor (and left bloody imprints on it; Nanami figured she was going to need some mental health assistance after this for herself as well); the main building was clear.

Shino climbed down from her perch on the wall, her part was all but done in this mess. Tono's organization was done, all that was left to do was to put the finishing touch on the top. She looked around, before noting, "Girls. There he is. The side building... Oh fuck." She had spotted what was in his hands, a simple tube with a strap and a grip, with something like an arrow sticking out of one side. "RPG!"

Tono's hands were shaky as he lifted the tube, "You murdered my grandson, you son of a bitch!" He aimed it in Shino's general direction, it didn't need to hit. It just needed to be close enough to hit the wall behind 'him'. Looking down the red light aiming sight, he caught Sinon raising 'his' rifle to position. It wouldn't matter. It took time to aim at him, and even if he hit, Tono would still get a shot off. No one would leave here...

Shino didn't know what she did had a name, not until two weeks after she took the shot. Even so, as she raised her rifle rapidly into firing position, she aimed not for the man who had turned her into a monster, instead she aimed for the tip of the rocket he had aimed in her general direction and fired.

The rifle that had been so easy on the recoil when it had been on its bipod slammed into her shoulder hard enough that she heard something crack, felt something give, pain shooting through her shoulder.

The pain did not matter. The shot did not strike the center of her hate; instead the Mark 211 round made contact with the trigger of the fragmentation shell, ignited and exploded, ruining the rocket's frag envelope. The fragmentation sleeve detonated in the opposite direction it was supposed to go, shedding splinters much more slowly to the side and back, and more importantly, into Tono Issei.

As Shino walked towards Tono, the two friends who had come with her this last time fell into position on either side. As they got close to the man, they saw the ruin his own weapon had done to him; nothing could save him. Shino removed her facemask, revealed herself as Tono looked up at her with his one good eye, gasping in shock as Sinon was revealed to him. "I only wanted... to mold... you..."

"You've molded me far too long already, Tono." said Shino, no more hate in her voice, only resolution. The deed was done, Tono would never hurt anyone again. "I was two when your majordomo murdered my father by accident, in place of your former boss. That sundered my family, turned my mother into a wreck. Drugs your organization provided fueled the man that tried to rob the mail office." The fifteen year old paused, closed her eyes. "I killed in order to survive, to protect the others there. That drove my mother insane. Then, you let your bastard grandson run free, profited from it, let him and his friends murder dozens for money and giggles."

She looked down at Tono, sadly. "I ended seventeen human lives, including _BOTH_ your bastard grandchildren. You turned me into a murderer, Nanami into a cripple." Her voice turned hard as she went to the next point, "You sent your men to murder a woman because of what her son might have done, and killed four innocent people in the process. I stopped them from hurting anyone else. You turned me into an urban legend." A small amount of amusement crept into her voice. "Your snuff film director committed the crime of thinking I was just another plaything to use and discard for profit. I removed that entire venture, and all of your 'employees' within it, to stop that particular evil. You turned me into a crusader."

Nanami stepped forward, and said with spite in her voice, "You enabled the Reds to get all the small arms they needed, the explosives. Fifty-eight people died because of that, and you gave some of us a taste of something horribly bad for us. Shino and I butchered our way through most of them. You forced children to make the choice, and because we stepped up, we became heroes to many." Her eyes narrowed. "Your men tortured Shino, and would have done the same to me if she had not turned out to be... whatever she is."

Shino nodded. "You turned me into a monster. Before that, I felt remorse, terrible guilt each time I took a life; after that, it's just another part of the day for me."

Endou looked to the other two, and smiled crookedly. "Eh, your dealers turned another jackass into a full psycho. You claimed my eyes." The grin widened. "And made me truly see for the first time. All the information that we've used to screw you over since?" She waved. "That was me."

Tono's breathing went shallow, quick. The look of horror on his face was more than Shino had expected, maybe he did have something resembling a soul somewhere in there, even if he only discovered it far too late. Or maybe it was the shards of metal sticking out of him, and she was having a bad case of wishful thinking.

"You wanted to know who made Sinon, who made Death Gun? You looked at him every day in the mirror, Tono Issei." Shino looked contemplative, before a slight smile crossed her lips. Her uninjured arm went for a pistol, the first pistol, the Black Star Shooter. "As you die, Tono-dono... Thank you for pushing me so hard, to remake me." Looking down the slide, Shino pulled the trigger to end it.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 50 Days: May 11th, 2025)

Looking about, the three took all of it in. The ruined compound, the burning helicopter (as well as their own ride coming down for them). All the dead bodies, the bodies of the three of them... Of the two 'rescuees'. Nanami sighed disgustedly, and said, "I don't know why, but this feels so wrong to me... I'm happy he's dead. I know I shouldn't be glad for someone else's demise, but still..." Endou shook her head, putting her hand on Nanami's shoulder.

"I feel nothing from it." said Shino, to the worry of the other two. "I feel nothing about his death. No joy, sorrow, hate, anything. All of this, it feels so hollow, so..." She sighed, then added, "The only thing I feel about this mess is the small satisfaction knowing that whoever takes over, will need to rebuild from scratch. Maybe a few lives will be saved, who knows?" Dissatisfaction showed on the face of the Deadliest Schoolgirl In Japan as the helicopter set down. "Well, I do need to finish this." She pulled out a cellphone and took a picture of Tono's corpse.

Endou and Nanami looked at her oddly, the former asking, "What was that for? Going to make a screensaver out of it? Why would you keep a photo like that of someone you hate so much?" Turning to the helicopter, she noted, "I'm just glad it's over."

Nanami continued to look to Shino, as if waiting for an answer to Endou's question. "I'm just confirming the corpse, making sure no one tries to hunt down someone who's no longer alive to claim, Nanami. And like Endou said, I'm content that the deed is done."

"Oh cool! He looks so awesome like that! Can we sell a mold of his corpse as modern art?" said Hansel, earning _the look_ from Nanami as the Twins boarded the helicopter.

* * *

(Outside The Compound)

Hidden in a cloak that broke up his heat profile, made him seem like just a small animal if viewed from above, a young-looking man with old eyes shook his head. His descendant was doing her level best to force him to crack a full smile, he had to hide his face so that his former apprentice would not see it. "All right, pay up, 'Tarik'." said the Black Cait, holding out his hand to the other man dressed like him.

Handing over a hundred dollar bill, The Albanian sighed. "All right. I hate to admit it, I thought she was just an ambush predator. Just what the hell is she that she can dole out head shots like they're candy, and with weapons she's never used before?"

The eldest Prince of the Covenant of Thorns had to fight down a chuckle. "She bears my spatial awareness. When Asada Shino holds a weapon, her mind runs over the possibilities compared to what she has already witnessed, how the weapon feels in her hand. Her mind works out a solution from that, though as the quick-scoping showed, it isn't perfect.." This time a small laugh did escape his lips, and he added, "It's also why my Little Cait is going to be running advanced math next year."

* * *

(Sasebo Naval Base)

The two had been looking over the footage for hours, watched as two schoolgirls put an end to the Tono Syndicate with extreme prejudice with intel provided by a third. Shirotaka Nanami had been as good as her word when she said they could do the assault slash rescue, though the two men wondered if they had needed to risk any of their assets at all.

They watched as two 'kidnap victims' jested about how they never expected that schoolgirls would get a bonus to hit with cephalopods as they passed the octopus tank they had dumped one of the men in, winced as they saw a shorter corpse stuffed into the chest cavity of a much bigger one like the Tauntaun scene from Star Wars, suppressed horror and hilarity in equal amounts as the twins had moved some of the corpses in the courtyard to look like they had been _in flagrante delicato_.

"My God." said the admiral who had been reviewing the 'civilian action' that had been green-lit by Intel. "Please tell me that all the survivors of SAO are not like this, Lieutenant Colonel. Please tell me that Akihiko Kayaba did not leave the equivalent of six thousand human time bombs as one last kaiju-sized 'Fuck You' to our nation. If they decide to turn on Japan..."

Kikouka Seijirou had expected to be called out on the carpet for being the source of the assault on a target that normally would have gone to the police when he had been called in to the office, for letting an asset dive into danger, to let three teenaged girls assault a threat that under any normal circumstances would have ended badly for them at best. Instead, he was watching a man who had served Japan for decades genuinely afraid, not of the threat RATH had been designed to fight, but instead ordinary high school students.

He smiled in what he hoped was a comforting fashion. "Sir, I prefer to look at this as an opportunity. You've seen what Nanami is capable of, both in battle and in the laboratory. She isn't alone in the former, and there might be a few of the latter we can make use of." His grin widened as he said, "I suggest we offer positive inducements for SAOvivors to join the JSDF. If we take the wolves and make them our sheep dogs, the sheep will never give us trouble. Even if somehow RATH does not provide everything we had hoped, we can make use of this human revolution."

* * *

(Scheherezade)

The two men were laughing jovially as they sat in the lounge of the high class bar, toasting the demise of a certain man. Both men in truth hated the other, but with Tono's death, both Kikouka Seijirou and Sugou Nobuyuki believed themselves able to realize their plans, their dreams. This one night, they would enjoy the other's presence.

"To Tono Issei. May he burn brightly forever." said Sugou, the faint smile on his face almost poisonous-seeming as he remembered the loathesome man. The successful businessman had wanted everything to feel as real as possible in his prison slash training ground; Tono had been a useful catspaw, though the crime boss had become a brief liability. With his removal, Sugou could finally make full use of new information and technology he had acquired from the military (at second hand).

Kikouka raised his own glass, smiling as he said, "To issues settled, and balances set straight." The RATH project was once again safe, though looking across from him, Kikouka knew it was only a matter of time before Sugou tried to screw him over as he had with Tono. The Lieutenant Colonel wondered what it might take in order to use Sinon on the other man; Sugou's company would be incredibly useful for training up his AIs in modern tactical warfare, but Kikouka did not dare letting that man touch his AIs.

Sugou's replacement assistant, an attractive woman who looked vaguely Eastern European, approached then to whispering something into that man's ear. "Oh dear. Is that so? All right. Kikouka-sama, it's been a pleasure as always." lied the corrupt executive, adding, "I do hope you've got a safe ride home." Standing, the man went to pay off his part of the tab before leaving.

"All right, Captain. I think it is time I left for home as well then, I have a long day in the morning." said Kikouka, shaking his head. Sugou leaving like that made him wonder what that man was up to now, who was going to get screwed over this time. 'Hopefully the Chinese. They're due for a good bit of Rectomancy.'

* * *

(Lieutenant Colonel Kikouka's Residence)

He checked the alarms religiously, like he normally did whenever he returned. It would not do to get robbed at home when he turned the key. His driver slash pilot waited until he was inside before driving off, Kikouka thought that perhaps it was a waste for Hiraga-shi to be essentially an overpaid chauffeur as he locked the door behind him.

As he began shutting off lights on his way to bed, he felt a slight pinch in his neck, then grogginess, and finally nothing as he went unconscious.

* * *

(Zero Hour Plus 51 Days: May 12th, 2025: Grave of Guns Online Director's Room)

When he woke up from his enforced nap, Kikouka found himself laying down on the ground in front of a throne that looked like something out of a science fiction movie. His eyes immediately went to the one sitting there, a tall pale man with long blond hair and six wings coming from his back. Also, Kikouka noticed a set of meters at the upper left corner of his view, and whispered out, "Oh fuck."

He distinctly hoped this was a dream, because it felt an awful lot like Full Dive, though much more real-seeming than a NervGear could provide.

"Oh fuck indeed, my 'dear friend' Kikouka-sama." said the avatar on the throne with the voice of that hateful corrupt bastard he had just been drinking with. The Fae King laughed as he looked at Kikouka's confusion. "Are you wondering how you could possibly be here, when the military would go looking for you the instant they figured out you had been taken?" The head of the RATH project glared at Oberon, Sugou's ALF avatar, as if by doing so he might burn a hole in the man's head.

The Fae King laughed loudly then, and gloated, "They don't need to find you, Kikouka! They already have found you!" Clasping his hands into Gendo Pose #1, Sugou gleefully drank in his second cats paw's confusion and fear. "At about seven AM this morning, Captain Hiraga Sasuke entered your home as is usual for him to help prep for the day ahead, and found you on the floor in front of the stairs, the apparent tragic victim of a horrible fall."

The utter horror as Kikouka put everything together pleased Sugou to no end. "You remember the Mind Copy Machine you had me use to take three hundred newborn minds for the RATH Project? You'll be happy to know it worked on you too! Now, I can pick your mind a little at a time as I need it. Your project? In two weeks at most, I'll have what I need to make it MY project. And when that happens, no matter what comes after that, I will have my Titania back."

* * *

(GoGO Clone Awakening Chamber/First Spawn Room)

It had taken Shirotaka Nanami less than an hour to figure out why Asada Shino had suffered so much pain when the SRAIGear she had placed on her head the day after she had been kidnapped: The feedback from an open loop could alter one's psyche and the wetware attached to it, which was why the red helmets were used by psychiatric wards and prisons, to try and 'improve' those wearing the helmets.

The blue helmet from Santo Paulo bore the solution. Its firmware had been made specifically to stop potential feedback loops dead in their tracks, to allow their users to access SRAIGear applications without the possibility of altering the mind. Nanami burned that firmware into two other helmets.

It had taken Nanami and Endou both talking her off from her high horse, but the two working together had gotten Shino to join them. The Three Black Cats (named for the avatars of Nanami's now disappeared older brother Akira) would be entering GoGO in full force; they thought that maybe they might be able to investigate from within.

Now, Shino had entered her login information. As she tried to log in, she felt pulling on her ears, on her tailbone again, but the pain wasn't so bad this time. Going active in game, she looked around to see a large number of people jars, and her partners, [Spice] for Endou and [Evy] for Nanami. As the two turned and looked at her, both of them broke out into a bad case of the giggles.

After about a minute of laughter, Shino said, "All right, seriously, what is so funny? Did they put spots on my face or something?" Nanami simply pointed at the mirror, gales of laughter streaming forth.

Looking at her avatar [Sugar], the cheeks of the slayer turned a bright red. Blue hair, that was all right, but cat ears and tail? "I will find whoever thought this was cute, and shove my boot up their a..."

* * *

 _From the director of 'Fifty Shades of Grey Dwarves: The Real Lives of the Duegar' comes the real life story of love blooming in war:_

 _'Field of Genocide: A Love Story', the tale of Hazeala, Airi, Iria, and two thousand unfortunate Reconquista invaders. Coming soon to a movie theater near you._


End file.
